


Conspiracy

by GhostAuthoress



Category: Hi5 - Fandom, matthias - Fandom
Genre: Betrayal, Creepy, Gen, My First Fanfic, Mystery, Sam - Freeform, Stalking, woods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 45,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28400247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostAuthoress/pseuds/GhostAuthoress
Summary: It all started when Matthias found the 863 key in the ceiling of blue base. First pushed off as a joke, Matthias didn't realize how far he had already fallen into the rabbit hole. More and more items started being found in Hi5 leading them further and further into the mystery of 863. But what will happen when the staff of Hi5 caught the attention of a man named Syhpus. And a mysterious character named D who has sent them only a safe and a note. 'You already have the key.' Who is Syhpus? What does he want with Hi5? The better question is How far will Syhpus go to hide whatever secrets he has stashed in Hi5 studios?
Kudos: 1





	1. ↠863 Key↞

**Author's Note:**

> I drew inspiration for Matthias's key saga series. If you don't know what I am talking about go check out the playlist!  
> I will be doing these chapters based off the episodes, some chapters may be longer or shorter depending on the length of the video. The inspiration should be credited to Matthias and his team. 
> 
> I will do my best to upload this story every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday. I hope you all enjoy the first chapter in Conspiracy!

Wednesday, 25th April 

First, I want to get one thing straight: Everything I am about to tell you is the truth. My team and I didn’t know how far we fell until it was too late to turn back. We didn’t know how far this would take us, but we pushed it off as a joke. That was the first mistake, if I had it the way I would have never checked that ceiling tile. I wouldn’t have ever put my team in this kind of danger. If you’re still confused, let me take you back to the day it all began. Hopefully, you’ll understand then. 

It started with a thought on my way to the office, “Is there anywhere I haven’t explored in Hi5?” That led to me shooting two videos with Paul, Conner, and Tanner. ‘We found a secret pathway in Hi5’ and also ‘We found a secret space in Hi5’ After shooting the video ‘Found a secret space in Hi5’ I noticed something off in the footage. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to see anything in the footage. But after checking the footage again in my office, I was adamant to find out what it was I saw. 

“Hey what are you doing here?” I called out to Paul, who just entered my office. 

Paul looked around a couple times before answering. “Just hanging out, what are you doing?” 

“Well, I was going over the footage from when I was in the ceiling and I swear I caught a glint of something. Maybe it’s just me, but I would like your option.” I replied. 

After I showed Paul the video, I looked up at him. “Do you think it’s worth it?” I questioned. 

Paul nodded his head, “Yeah, maybe, I’m down.” He shrugged. 

Walking downstairs, Izzy gently grabbed my upper arm. "Do you want me to paint this wall as well?” He asked, pointing to the wall to the left of the door. 

“That wall?” I confirmed. 

Izzy nodded, “Yes, that one too.” I replied watching Izzy walk away. 

“Izzy, I am going to take your ladder for a minute, is that okay?” I asked, putting my hand on the short ladder. 

Izzy turned towards me and nodded. Paul went to grab the ladder, but I stopped him quickly. “I don’t think this will be tall enough man.” I sighed. 

“Well then, let’s go find a bigger ladder.” Paul suggested walking towards the storage room in the back, 

It only took a couple minutes for Paul to find a larger ladder in the storage room. As Paul was pulling out the ladder, a small group formed. CJ and a few other employees. 

“What are you doing?” CJ asked, hands on his hips. 

“I’m going back up there, I think I saw something on the tape from the latest video.” I replied with a small laugh.

CJ shook his head with a wide grin on his face. I turned back to Paul, watching him set up the ladder. 

“Here you go, have fun.” Paul commented after setting up the ladder. While CJ handed me a pair of protective goggles. 

I climbed up the ladder, pushed the title out of place, making some dust fall which caused CJ to cough. 

“Are you okay?” I asked, looking down at CJ. 

“Yeah, just dusty.” He replied, his face scrunched up with discomfort. 

“See, Paul still didn’t set it upright.” I joked, hopping down from the ladder.

“Still didn’t set it upright?” Paul replied with a small chuckle, watching me fix the ladder slightly. 

I climbed up the ladder once more, using my head this time to push the title up. Earning a few laughs from the guys, I pushed the titling further up. 

“What the heck?” I commented, “That’s not what I thought I would find.” I said again. 

After a few minutes of looking around, I realized what I thought I saw was just some wiring. Deflated, I started moving things around, hoping to find something else. That’s when I noticed something behind the wiring, but I couldn’t reach it. “Get me something so I can reach.” I called out. 

One of the crew came out from the storage room with a small handle broom, “Will this work?” He asked. 

I turned towards him, “Yes.” I replied quickly, taking the small hand broom. After a couple tries, I snagged the item and pushed it towards me. 

“Oh, what the heck?” I said, grabbing the item and brushing the leftover dust off. It was a small silver key on a small jump ring. Normal people would just look over it, but what caught my interest was on the key was a small piece of tape. On the tape were the numbers ‘863’ sloppily written on it. 

“Keys?” Paul questioned. 

“Keys.” I confirmed. 

“No, No, No way.” He replied chuckling nervously. 

“I think I can come down now.” I drawled out. 

“That’s so weird.” Paul said, watching me look around the room slowly. 

“Are these yours?” I questioned CJ first. 

“No.” CJ Answered quickly. 

I walked past the small group holding out the key, “Does this mean anything to you?” I asked, watching them shake their heads. 

Paul and I walked over to the orange base, finding Gunner in his office. 

“Hey, Hey, where’s Tanner?” Paul shouted. 

Gunner slowly turned in his chair, “In Patrick’s office.” He answered. 

Paul peeked in the office next door, noticing they both weren’t there. “Where is Patrick?” He asked again. 

“I don’t know!” Gunner said. 

“Here let me ask him,” I said, pushing past Paul to enter the office. 

“Do these mean anything to you?” I asked, holding out the keys in the palm of my hand. Gunner took the keys from my hand. 

“863? No, I don’t think so.” Gunner answered, handing the keys back. 

“You don’t recognize those keys at all?” I questioned again. 

“Oh! Mail keys!” Gunner shouted. 

“Mail keys? That’s the second person who said that.” Paul, and I said in unison. 

“I don’t think these are mail keys,” I said looking closer at the keys, noticing they said ‘century’ on them. 

“Is it a vault?” Gunner suggested. 

“No, stop.” I said. 

“That would be cool.” Paul said smiling. 

“That’s what I’m saying though, it could be one of those fireproof safes. I used to have one of those small ones.” Gunner said. 

“That sounds cool, we’ll be back.” I said as I was leaving the office. 

“I probably know where he is, which is probably my office.” Paul suggested walking up the stairs. 

“Tanner?” I called as I jogged up the stairs. 

“Yeah?” Tanner called back, swiveling in Paul’s chair. 

“Okay, listen, I went back up in the ceiling. Because I found something in the footage.” I said, wiping the sweat off my head.

“No.” Tanner snickered. 

“Yeah, so it turned out to be nothing, but that’s not important. Turns out there was something behind the nothing.” I explained, pulling the keys from my pocket. 

“No, stop, no way you found keys in the ceiling.” Tanner bellowed as I passed him the keys. 

“Yeah, look, do those mean anything to you?” I questioned. 

“863? No.” Tanner said. 

Looking over at Micheal who also shook his head, I took the keys back from Tanner. “Alright, Gunner thought they may have something to do with a safe.” I said. 

“Is there a safe up there?” Micheal and Tanner said in unison. 

“It might be,” Paul said, shrugging. 

“Well, wouldn’t you want the two items far away from each other?” I pointed out. 

“Are we going to go find this thing?” Tanner asked. 

“Well, nobody has found a safe this entire time since we’ve been here. How long have we been here?” I asked, looking over at Paul.

“Over a year, a year and a half.” Paul said, hands in his pocket.

“But, again these were found in blue base.” I said. 

“Yeah, but blue base we haven’t had for every long.” Paul pointed out. 

“True!” Tanner exclaimed. 

“We’re possibly looking for something, the former tenants have left over. I feel like that would be pretty apparent because when we moved in it was completely empty.” I said, waving my arm to the side. 

“I feel like the only person who can answer this question right now, is Kevin. But he’s not here.” I said with a grin. 

Tanner groaned, “Are we about to solve a mystery?” Tanner asked, placing his fingers on the side of his head. 

“I guess we have to wait until Kevin gets here honestly.” I sighed. 

“It’s possible we are looking for a safe.” I said. 

“It’s safe to say, we are looking for a safe.” Tanner joked. 

“Are you guys vlogging up there without me?” A voice came from the stairs, Paul, Tanner, and I looked over the banister, finding Conner climbing the stairs. 

“Yeah.” I replied, watching Conner reach the top of the stairs. 

“We found something in the ceiling of the blue base.” I said holding out my hand above Conner’s and dropped the keys in his hand. 

“What?” Conner said, confused examining the keys. 

“863? It’s a code!” Conner said, eyes wide with amusement. 

Tanner and Paul let out a loud laugh, “Yeah, but the question is to what Conner.” Paul replied. 

“It could be a Po Box.” Conner said. 

“Can one of you look up what century is?” I asked, looking at the small; group. 

All three looked at me for a long minute, not replying. “It’s a lock company, they make safes.” Conner finally replied. 

“You know what we’re doing?” I asked. 

“We’re safe hunting.” All three replied. 

I used the rest of the day to ask people if they recognized the key or if they had even lost one. I kept getting the same answer ‘no’ with no one to claim the 863 key that left two questions in my mind. “Where did this key come from?” And also ``Who does this key belong to?”


	2. ↠A Mystery in Beige↞

Tuesday,15th May 

I couldn’t contain my excitement to get into the office this morning, Kevin would be in the office today so I could ask him about the 863 key I found. As I was climbing the stairs to my office, I ran into Kevin. 

“So you probably haven’t seen the video, but I really wanted to ask you about the Key I found. I am hoping you of all people would know what it goes to.” I said while walking to my office. 

“What key?” Kevin questioned, raising an eyebrow. 

“Alright, come on, I will show you.” I said, waving Kevin into my office. 

I sat down at my desk, turning the computer screen towards Kevin. Informing him what had happened, watching Kevin shift in his seat occasionally. 

“My question to you is, since you helped me get these spaces. Because we got orange base before we got blue base and red base, I know we got blue and red base at the same time. But do you remember anything that was leftover in this space?” I asked, as Kevin thought about it for a long minute. I waited a couple minutes before speaking again. 

“I remember there were tenants before us that went out of business and there was a lot of leftover stuff, and a lot of that stuff we threw away.” I added, holding out my hand. 

“Yeah, but something with a key?” Kevin said. 

“There was no safe or anything?” I asked quickly.

Kevin’s eyes widened as if an idea sparked in his head, “You know what, there was a filing cabinet.” He said, Kevin went to speak again, but his phone interrupted him. 

“I have to go bro, I have an appointment.” Kevin rushed as he backed out of the room. 

“Okay, what time is your appointment?” I asked, chuckling to myself slightly. 

“In like five minutes, we’ll talk after.” Kevin said before finally leaving the office. 

I let out a sigh, following Kevin to his office. “Okay, but can I come back when it’s over?” I questioned. 

“Yeah, the appointment ends at three.” Kevin answered quickly, waving his hand toward me signalling me to leave. 

I walked out of the office, making my way over to orange base to shoot a GG video. 

“Hey, hey.” Paul greeted sipping his water. 

“Hey, so you know how we found the set of keys in the ceiling and we had no idea what they went to?” I questioned. 

Everyone nodded slowly, “Well, Kevin was in today, so I could ask him about them. He said he’s busy right now, but he thinks he knows where they go.” I announced. 

“Really!?” Tanner exclaimed. 

“That sounds like a plan. That sounds like another adventure.” Paul said. 

After GG’s shoot, I rushed to grab Kevin. “GG’s videos are done, now you can show me, what did you say before?” I asked. 

“It was a file cabinet. It was a long time ago, nobody had a key for it though. So I think we just put it in the orange base warehouse.” Kevin said, facing his computer. 

“See the issue with that is we got blue base ages ago, bro. Like over a year ago?” I questioned. 

“Yeah, half a year.” Kevin confirmed. “So all that stuff is stored up there” Kevin added, running a hand down his face and sighing. 

Laughing, I started walking down the stairs slowly, with Kevin behind me. 

“Do you remember what color it was?” I asked, turning towards Kevin. 

“Honestly, it was so dirty I don’t know.” Kevin replied. 

Both Kevin and I headed back to orange base, “I got Kevin!” I called out watching Paul, Connor, and Tanner push out their chairs. 

“You honestly think you know where the key goes!?” Tanner asked, taking a sip of his Surge. 

“There was a filing cabinet that was moved to orange base storage.” He replied. 

“Let’s take a peek, bro.” I said waving for Tanner, Connor, and Paul to follow. 

All five of us walked to the storage room, “Does anyone have any idea where it would be?” I inquired. 

Everyone spread out, shifting through boxes. “I think we put the bigger stuff, on the second floor.” Kevin pointed out. 

I swiftly made my way up to the second floor. After a couple minutes of moving items around, I found it behind a large box. 

“Do you recognize it?” I asked Kevin as he shimmed it out from behind the box. 

“It looked familiar.” Kevin said. 

“You think this is the one?” I asked again. 

“I mean, why would it be up here if it wasn’t,” Kevin said shrugging. 

“Should we do it here?” I asked. 

“We could just drop it over the edge.” Connor suggested. 

“Drop it!?” I shouted. 

“Let’s bring it downstairs then.” Connor shrugged. 

I picked up the filing cabinet, pushing past everyone, and brought it downstairs. Connor walked over to the closet, shaking the handle a couple times. “It’s locked.” I said. 

“I don’t care.” Connor answered. 

“We need nothing from there, I have the key.” I snickered. 

“I don’t care, I want to break it open.” Connor growled. 

“Before we break it open, we need to make sure it doesn’t belong to anyone.” I tried to reason. 

“Okay, but if it doesn’t belong to anyone. Then can I break it open?” Connor asked. 

“First let’s try the key.” I said, bending down and inserted the key in the lock, I tried to turn the key but it jammed. 

“Did you just jam that in there?” Connor asked, defeated. 

After some fighting, I pried the key out from the lock, but unfortunately I jammed the lock and broke the key. 

“Are we just going to force this open now?” Tanner asked skeptically. 

“I actually have to leave.” Kevin said leaving the room. 

“Bye Kevin.” I called everyone. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of this.” I called. Watching Connor nod his head with a thin smile across his face. 

“Okay, so the 863 key doesn’t go to this.” I said. 

“I want to make sure this isn’t anyone before we break into this, I will feel horrible going through someone’s stuff. So Monday, we’ll ask around and if the cabinet doesn’t belong to anyone then Connor I will let you break in.” I announced.


	3. ↠TS5 Key↞

Friday, June 1st

On my way to the office, I was experiencing a whirlwind of emotions. I was excited because it was the first shoot for my new channel, Dope or Nope. But I was also slightly nervous because of the filing cabinet. Today I had the chance to go around asking the employees about it to see if it belonged to any of them. If it didn’t Connor could break it open, that’s what had me nervous. What was inside that was so important to be locked in there? 

After shooting Dope or Nope, I met up with Connor first. “Hey, I have an idea.” Connor said, tapping my shoulder with the back of his hand. 

“Sure, what’s up.” I replied. 

“What if when we talk to people about the cabinet we act like cops and interrogate them?” Connor suggested laughing to himself slightly. 

I nodded my head, thinking about it for a couple minutes before smiling to myself. “That sounds like a dope idea, bro.” I admitted. 

“I say we do it.” Connor said, following me out the door to meet the others. 

Later, after lunch, we met in the kitchen. “Let’s head to the armory to set up.” I ordered, waving the boys to follow me. 

Paul, Tanner and I slipped on our hats, sunglasses, and vests and then grabbed a Nerf Gun. Meanwhile, Connor was stuck in the jailer's uniform. 

“Why do I have to be in the jumpsuit?” Connor complained, raising his hands over his head. 

Everyone laughed while Connor frowned. “Alright, let’s go interrogate people.” I announced. 

“Do we need the filing cabinet?” Paul asked. 

“I don’t think so, I mean it’s a short white one. Someone would know if they were missing one.” I shrugged. 

“Let’s go see Kevin first.” I suggested. 

As we were climbing the stairs, I hushed everyone. “Let’s ask Nicole instead.” I whispered, pointing towards her office. 

I watched Tanner and Paul lean against the other wall, raising their guns to their chests. Then quickly sprinted into Nicole’s office. 

“Get on the ground!” Tanner shouted, pointing the gun at Nicole. 

Nicole cowered in her chair, putting her arms over her head. “What are you doing!?” She cried. 

“Nicole, answer truthfully!” I shouted at her.

“Okay.” She whimpered. 

“Nicole, do you own a white filing cabinet?” I questioned. 

“Technically, I don’t own it.” She answered. 

“She stole it!” Tanner screeched. 

“What does that mean?” I quizzed. 

“It looks like she enjoys filing cabinets!” Paul shouted, pointing at the small white cabinets in Nicole’s office. 

“What filing cabinet!?” Nicole shouted, this time putting her hands in the air. 

“let me rephrase the question.” I said, waving my hand in front of me. “Do you own a beige filing cabinet?” I asked 

“No.” Nicole said. 

“Okay, it’s not her.” I said defeated turning and left the room. 

Everyone followed behind me while walking to Orange base and Red base following the same action with Nicole. After finding out the cabinet didn’t belong to anyone, we all ran back over towards blue base to find the cabinet. 

“Do you guys want to bust it open and see what’s inside?” I asked, leaning against the table. 

“Yeah!” Everyone shouted in unison. 

“How are we going to open it?” Paul asked, lifting it onto the table. 

“Connor, what do you say?” I asked, turning toward him. 

“I want to take a baseball bat to it.” He replied. 

“Baseball bat?” I asked. 

“Do it.” Tanner said. 

Connor disappeared into the closest and after a few minutes came out with a metal bat. “Ready?” He asked, waiting for everyone to get behind the protected stands. Once everyone was out of the way, Connor twirled the bat a few times before smacking the bat into the side of the cabinet. Connor hit the cabinet a few times until he busted the lock and opened the middle drawer. 

“It’s empty?” I questioned. 

“Nah dude look.” Tanner said, pulling out a small gray box from the back of the cabinet. 

“What is this a garage door opener?” Paul joked. 

After Tanner and Paul messed with the small box for a few minutes, the box clicked, revealing a combination lock on the side. 

“We are so deep in the rabbit hole!” Tanner exclaimed, putting his fingers on the side of his head. 

“Hold on, hold on, I am so confused. Recapping, the original key I found, did not go to this.” I declared. 

“Hold on I want to try something, if it works it’s going to blow my mind.” I said, taking the box from Tanner. 

“Are you going to try, 863?” He asked as I nodded my head in response. 

I put in ‘863’ into the combination lock and pulled at the end of the box, opening a small secret compartment. Finding another key inside. 

“Are you joking right now!?” Tanner bellowed, trying to stop himself from laughing. 

“TS5” Tanner read off the small silver key. 

“What is this, a mini safe?” I asked. 

“Yeah, with a key inside.” Tanner confirmed. 

“That’s creepy.” I shuddered.

“This whole thing is creepy, man.” Tanner admitted. 

“Now I have two keys.” I said. 

“So 863 didn’t go to this?” Tanner said. 

I shook my head, “No we tried that, luckily we had two keys.” I said. 

“So that must mean that the 863 key leads to something bigger.” Tanner concluded. 

“They look like two different keys.” I said. 

“Yeah, they belong to two different things.” Tanner agreed. 

With the TS5 key now found, additional questions arise. Does the 863 key lead to something bigger? If so, what does it lead to? What does this new TS5 key lead to? Also, how far will this rabbit hole lead us?


	4. ↠Hallowed Walls↞

Friday 27th March

A few things have happened at the studio. We got an expansion of the red base meaning more space but also more stuff the previous tenants left. One of those items being an old brown desk. After playing with Luna, I left the house. Once I got into the car my phone buzzed, checking my phone I noticed I got a vox from Woods. 

“Okay, I found something dope, I don’t know if it’s connected to your key blog. It’s not keys, it’s actually a key making kit.” Woods explained. 

“A key making kit!?” I exclaimed. 

“Sam!” I called once I entered the office. 

“Good morning!” Sam greeted at the middle of the stairs. 

“Morning.” I greeted back, climbing the stairs to my office to drop off my things. 

“So let’s go find Woods, right?” I asked, walking to the stairs. 

“Right.” Sam agreed, following close behind to the red base. 

Sam and I trudged through the new expansion of the red base until we found Woods. 

“Hey Woods, where is the key kit?” I asked. 

“Over here.” Woods said, jogging over to a medium brown desk behind a couple of empty boxes. 

“It was in this drawer.” He explained, opening the drawer, pulling out a few random items. I grabbed the box off the desk, then started walking out of the room. 

“Let’s go expect this, Sam.” I said. 

Sam and I walked back to the blue base, running up the stairs to the conference room. Sam closed the door behind us, then sat down across from me. As I opened the box, finding on the lid of the box was a map of all the contents inside. 

“This isn’t a key making kit, this is a relocking and making locks kit.” I announced. 

“I have to be honest, I wanted more.” I laughed, lifting the top level, finding a bunch of QR Codes that had been taped on the bottom. 

Sam’s eyes widened as her mouth dropped open. Both Sam and I were speechless as we stared at each other with disbelief. 

“Scan them?” Sam suggested nervously. 

“Might as well.” I shrugged, pulling out my phone. I hovered my phone over one code, waiting a couple seconds before a bunch of 1’s and 0’s appeared on my screen. Sam leaned closer, reading the numbers slowly. 

“Try face timing it?” She joked. 

Laughing, “Do you think this is anything?” I asked. 

“I mean, it could be something. We should exhaust all options. Which one did you scan?” Sam questioned. 

“The top right one. I will try calling it.” I said, putting the phone to my ear only to receive a can not be connected message. 

“Let’s go see Tanner and Connor and see what they say.” I decided. 

Walking to the orange base, I caught Connor before he disappeared upstairs. “Connor come here.” I called. 

“What’s up?” Connor said, bouncing down the stairs. 

“Woods found this.” I said, tapping the top of the box. 

Connor took the box from my hands and read the box. I took the box from his hands, then placed it on the counter next to the fridge. 

"I have a couple ideas, but I don’t want to give it away. This looked all normal to me until.” I said while lifting the top revealing the QR Codes. 

Connor’s face contorted in confusion, “Where did you find this?” He asked. 

“This was found in the new unit.” I said. 

“That’s weird.” Connor said wearily. 

“What’s your first thought when you see this?” I questioned. 

“Well, they are QR Codes, so you take your phone and scan them.” He replied. 

“I did that.” I said. 

“And?” Connor quizzed. 

“Nothing, just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s.” I declared. 

“Okay, did you take that and put it in a decoder?” Connor probed. 

“A what?” I asked, perplexed. 

“A binary decoder.” Connor repeated. 

“Let me see what Tanner says first.” I faltered. 

“Okay.” Connor said. 

Connor and I waited for Tanner to get out of his meeting, after he was out of his meeting I pulled him over towards the counter. 

“So this was found by Woods, in the new unit.” I repeated. 

“Where did he find it?” Tanner asked. 

“In a desk brought from the old tenets.” I stated. 

“What do you make of it?” I asked. 

“Is it for lock picking?” he asked, messing with some smaller pieces in the box.

“No, it’s for rekeying doors, anyway. It was normal to me until Sam and I found this underneath.” I said, lifting the first level. 

“QR Codes, wait, what?” Tanner laughed. 

“Obviously they have been tapped in there, they didn’t come with the box.” I explained. 

“Have you scanned them yet?” He asked. 

“Yes, I have.” I confirmed. Taking out my phone to scan one of the QR Codes, then showed Tanner the results. 

“Binary!” Tanner laughed. 

“Connor said the same thing, so let’s grab Connor and try to figure this out.” I said, jogging up the stairs to the GG set. 

“So what do I do with this Connor?” I asked, setting the box in the middle of the floor. 

“Scan the code, then you copy and paste it in a binary decoder.” Connor explained, leaning against the desk. I followed Connor’s instructions and then waited for the code to be decoded. 

“T Left.” I read off. 

“That can’t be it.” Tanner said, taking my phone from my hands. 

“Well, if you look, this QR Code is more dense than the others.” I pointed out. 

“What does that mean?” Tanner questioned. 

“Less data. So that could be what it is. Write that down.” I said. 

“Okay, next one, eft, Left, Left.” I read off. 

“So we are trying to put them in the right order?” Sam asked. 

“If this has a right in it, I am so triggered.” Tanner commented. 

I scanned the next code, “What are these cheat codes?” Tanner joked. 

“I think I am scanning these in the wrong order.” I guessed.

We scanned the rest of the QR Codes, then wrote them down until we had all of them scanned. 

“So I think we are scanning them wrong, but this proves they aren’t cheat codes. They are more like directions.” Tanner pointed out. 

Connor grabbed an Expo marker and began trying to find the correct order. “So Woods found this in the new unit of the red base.” I insisted. 

“So if we are basing it off of entering red base then we can assume the lefts and rights are forks in the road.” Tanner declared. 

“So you think these are directions from the point you enter the door?” I asked as Tanner nodded. 

“Okay, let’s try it.” I shrugged. 

“I’m down.” Tanner said, raising his hand. 

Everyone rushed to the red base. We followed the directions until we came to the new kitchen. 

“Is it telling you to turn or anything?” Sam questioned, spinning around. 

“No, it says straight, left, left, up.” I read off. 

“Where are stairs!?” Tanner screeched, tapping my shoulder. 

“What if it’s the origin point of the box?” Connor asked. 

“Let’s try it.” I said, walking towards the desk. 

We followed the directions from the desk, only for them to lead us outside. I let out a sigh of frustration, looking around the large room. For a few minutes we tried different paths until I had a sudden thought when Hannah walked by. 

“Hannah, where was that desk when we found it?” I asked.

“Against this wall.” Hannah said, walking towards the wall. 

“What if we try right here?” I asked, following the directions up the stairs, then up the smaller stairs Izzy installed. To the back stairs, then into a larger office room. We continued into the room until we came to a wall connected to the doorway. 

“What’s behind this wall?” Tanner said, exited the room, going back into the hallway and then finally started knocking on the wall. 

I walked back into the room, then knocked on the wall. Noticing it was hollowed as I was pounding on the wall, I also noticed that the wall started cracking. 

“Can I body check it?” Connor asked. 

“Try it.” I finally said, watching Connor take a running start, then body checked a perfectly square hole in the wall. I pushed against the hole faintly hearing a small rattling noise behind it. 

“There’s something back there!” Sam gasped, backing away from the wall. 

I grabbed a hammer, then began tearing the rest of the drywall off. Revealing a small red medical kit.

“You just had a son, you really want this in your life right now?” Tanner asked while placing the pieces back on the wall. 

“Do we know anything about the previous tenants?” He said.

“What if there are pictures of naked dead people?” Tanner questioned. 

“We know they did experiments, they had a bunch of labs here.” I answered, regretting what I said instantly. 

“That doesn’t make it better.” Connor said, shaking his head and watching me continue tearing at the wall. I slowly took the first aid kit out of the wall, noticing it had some heft to it. I took the first aid kit to the middle of the room, observing it for a couple minutes. The medical kit had a small black knob and a combination lock on the front. 

Connor gasped, “863.” He whispered. 

“You don’t think.” I said. 

“You think 863 key is connected to this?” Tanner asked, pointing to the first aid kit. 

“There is no way.” I sighed, shaking my head. 

“It’s the only three-digit number we have.” Connor pointed out. 

I slowly turned the combination keys to 863 and turned the knob, watching the first aid kit’s lid open. 

“No way!” Tanner shouted, walking out to the hallway, then quickly came back into the room. 

“So what’s in it?” He asked nervously. 

I leisurely opened the first aid kit, unveiling the kit had two compartments filled with more keys. 

“Stop!” Sam shouted, backing away. 

“There are so many with numbers on them!” Tanner blurted, pointing to the small pile on the floor. Connor, Tanner, and I started picking up keys, taking note that some keys were handwritten while the others had a piece of paper taped on. 

“I can’t with this.” I sighed, running a hand down my face. 

“Now what?” Connor asked, looking from me to Sam a couple times. 

“So if the last one had 863 on it, and it led to this. What if these led to different lock boxes?” Tanner speculated. 

“But what do they go to! Every key we found has led to another key! This is just a wild goose chase.” I barked. 

“What if whoever owned this place before us, just threw these in here?” Tanner said. 

“Or they are hiding something.” Connor muttered. 

“Why would you need so many keys?” Sam finally asked. 

“What if this doesn’t even go to this building?” I asked, standing. 

“What do you need keys for?” Tanner said, thinking about it for a long minute. 

“For everything!” I bellowed, throwing my hands to the side. 

“This many keys though.” Tanner said. 

“They all go to different things.” I blurted. 

“What do we do?” Connor finally asked, standing as well. 

After taking a few deep breaths, I spoke again. “Here is what we do, I put all the keys back. Then I put the box behind my safe and just let it sit for a while. Of course we can’t tell anyone what we found because I have no idea where these go or where they even came from. So unless we have a reason to take the box out, we leave it alone.” I suggested. 

“What if the previous tenants left these too?” Connor said. 

That sent a chill down my spine. The previous tenants left the desk, which led to this box of keys. Then what else did they leave? The scarier question was: What will this box of keys lead us to next?


	5. ↠Mystery of the Red Mountaineer↞

Wednesday, September 4th

As I was leaving my house, I glided a finger over my car's windshield, scrunching my nose up in disgust from the thick layer of ash on my fingers. As I was driving down the highway, everything in the city was engulfed by a bright yellow hue. The sun was hidden behind the thick layer of smoke and ash. After I got to the office and parked my car, I walked into the building, walked up the stairs, and shot a GG episode.

After GG was shot, I went to Patrick's office. "Pat, are you busy later?" I requested.

"Depends on when and what for." He replied.

"Just say yes or no, are you busy later?" I questioned.

"I mean no." Patrick answered.

"I need help, I am going to look through some key stuff." I announced.

"Oh god again?" Patrick asked.

"Yes, again." I confirmed, "But, no seriously?" I repeated.

"Sure, I'm down." Pat shrugged, spinning in his chair idly.

"I literally have no leads and I think a fresh pair of eyes will help." I admitted.

"Well, you came to the right person, I am brilliant." Pat joked as I was leaving the office.

I took a lap around the orange base one last time for Tanner. After a few tries I walked back downstairs opening the door, getting engulfed in a wave of heat, I let out a groan quickly shutting the door behind me. I stood at the door for a few minutes before walking back up the stairs towards the Dope or Nope set. It seemed minutes passed before Tanner appeared in the smaller office.

"So, listen. I already recruited Patrick. Are you down to join us with some key theories?" I explained.

"What am I bringing to the table?" Tanner asked.

"Literally more brain power." I implemented while waving my hands around my head.

"Sure." Tanner finally said.

When Tanner and I were done getting the thumbnail for Dope or Nope, we headed to the blue base. Where we also gathered Sam, before heading upstairs to her office. I grabbed the box from behind the couch, opened the box, then dumped the keys onto the floor. Patrick let out a pained noise as I was dumping the keys.

"I was going say don't do that because then they wouldn't be organized ." Pat sighed.

"They were never organized, but Pat, how would you organize this? That might be a clue," I offered.

"Numerical order." Patrick answered.

"Okay, let's start." I shrugged, crossing my legs together, then grabbed a handful of keys.

"How about we put all the 1's, 2's to 9's in a pile then we organize it by numerical order?" Tanner suggested.

"That could work." Sam chimed in.

We all started putting the keys in small piles, glancing quickly at the numbers. We messed and talked back and forth about and with the keys for half an hour before something on one of the red keys caught Tanner's eye.

"This one has a word on the back." Tanner suddenly announced.

"What!?" I cried out.

"Mountaineer?" Tanner read out carefully.

"Oh no, let me see." I quaked as Tanner handed me the key.

I tried to read the word on the key, but the writing was feverish and hard to read. "Is that a type of car?" Tanner asked, pulling out his phone. It only took a couple minutes to find the car in question.

"It's a car!?" Sam shrieked.

"Do you guys want to go outside and look for a mountaineer?" Tanner asked.

"I want to look outside for a Slurpee." I joked.

"Can we go to Seven-Eleven?" Sam asked.

"First, I say we take a Slurpee break and then when we get back we look to see if there is a car." I announced as everyone hopped up onto their feet, already leaving the small office. We all went downstairs, as we were collecting everyone's orders Tanner had an idea.

"Woods used to work at a Car show, do these look like old car keys?" He asked, holding them out in front of Woods.

Woods slowly took the keys from Tanner, "How about we look up Mountaineer?" I suggested entering the room. Woods looked up the word on the computer bringing up a bunch of different brands, one stuck out in particular. 'Mountaineer Company.'

"What if that was the company from before?" Tanner pointed out. Woods brought up some images of the car, Patrick gasped.

"I've seen that car around the studio before." He admitted.

"Where?" Everyone suddenly started panicking.

"Hold on, let's talk about this over a Slurpee." I said, holding out my hands. Everyone nodded in agreement as they started out the door, piling into the car. Once we got back from the store, we all gathered in the studio's lobby.

"So where did you see the car?" I asked, leaning forward to look past Sam.

"Behind the red base?" Sam asked, sipping her drink.

"Yeah, I've seen it parked out there a couple times, but I haven't seen it for a while." Pat said.

"I've never seen it." Hannah said.

"Do you want to do a lap around the building?" I said.

Everyone stood, then started walking to the back of the building. "What's the red car right there?" Patrick pointed out. As we all drew closer to the car, we noticed the car was beaten and dirty. On the driver's side door was a keypad, also the car didn't have a license plate.

"I feel like to ensure it's nobody's car we should wait until the end of the day." Sam said.

"How can it be someone's car with no license plates?" I questioned.

"I think you should try the key out." Tanner chimed in. I walked over towards the car and tried to put the key in the lock. The first time the key felt like it got stuck, I quickly pulled the key out and tried again, this time the key fit.

"Should we wait?" I asked nervously.

"I think we should." Sam said.

"Wait, Matt, what is the number on the key?" Patrick asked.

Glancing down, "155" I read off.

"That keypad is a way to unlock it, why don't you try 155?" Patrick said. I inserted the code into the keypad and then pulled the handle, opening the car, causing the alarm to set off. I quickly shut the door and sped walked away from the car. Everyone started scrambling behind the bushes.

"Open the door and lock it!" Hannah and Patrick yelled. I quickly hopped the small wall and opened the car door again. Looking for a lock, but the car didn't have one. Sam swiftly came over, sitting in the car, and then the alarm stopped. The headlights blinked rapidly.

"Did 155 work?" Pat asked.

"I don't know." I yelled.

"So, this is what we do. We lock it and then we try the code again." Pat instructed.

"Fine." I sighed with defeat, going over towards the car again. Sam inputted the code into the keypad slowly, causing the headlight to stop blinking.

"Okay, then this is for sure the car those keys belong to." Pat said smiling, "Which means if we have the keys then we own this car." He pointed out.

"Now open it and see if the alarm goes off." Sam advised.

"If I open this and the alarm doesn't go off, that means," I started speaking.

"It's ours!" Tanner interrupted.

"I don't know if it's ours! But we have the key." I trembled slowly opening the car door, and the car alarm didn't go off.

"No, No, No, No" Sam cried holding up her hands and sped away from the car.

"Nope." I repeated, following the same action.

"The code worked." Sam whimpered.

"How long has that been there!?" I shouted, running my hands over my head.

"I told you I have seen that car around!" Patrick screeched.

"It's been around here since I have been on BU, which means someone was driving it around. But now no one is." Patrick said.

Everyone quickly walked back into the studio, sitting back in the lobby. "The key we found goes to the car, which means the key will either start the car or go to something inside the car like a lockbox." Patrick hinted.

"The thing is, if we found the key here. Then why is it parked over there in our neighbor's parking lot?" Patrick questioned.

"Probably because they don't want it to be in our space since it has been there so long." Tanner said.

"The question is, why are those two connected, who do they belong to?" Tanner spoke again.

"Even if it is connected, why doesn't it have any plates on it?" I chuckled nervously.

"The registration that was taped on the windshield said 2015." Tanner said.

"We've been here since 2017, so that could have been parked since then.

"I think we should wait, lock the car again. Try the code again." I instructed.

"My thing is, how do you know you have seen it before?" Tanner asked.

"My roommate in college had that car, so when I saw it driving around that memory resurfaced and I thought it was weird." Patrick explained.

"That makes sense." I said, glancing down at my watch. "I think it is safe to go look at the car." I spoke again, walking toward the back door. We walked back towards the car slowly, hopping over the small wall. I opened the car door and sat in the car, putting the keys in the ignition. Turning the key in the ignition, starting the car. Quickly turning the car off, I slipped out of the car and closed the door behind me.

"This is what it tells me. This car has been sitting in this spot for years, so no one is claiming it. So I feel slightly safer going through it." Tanner said.

"I don't!" I shouted.

"Why?" Tanner asked with a look of confusion.

"Because we don't know what's in there." I shouted, pointing at the car.

"Should I take a quick look?" Tanner quipped.

"No, because what if we find something that we don't want to be legally owned." Sam said.

"I don't think we should go through that....Yet." I suggested.

"I think we should do a little research first, maybe we can find the VIN number. Talk to some cops." I listed off.

"I also think we should wait to look through the car, Matt, you put the key in your office and we leave it." Pat said.

"What do the other keys go to!? We got a free car out of one!" Tanner shouted.


	6. ↠The Red Ghost↞

Monday 28th September

While I was in my home office, I was curious about the viewer's theories about the car. So I checked Reddit, finding a ton of posts asking if there were any Ness Cameras around the car to see if it had moved. I rushed to the studio, unlocking the door to Mega Desk and quickly turning it on. I have honestly been dragging my feet with checking the cameras, mainly because of the inferior quality Ness Cameras. Scrolling through the different cameras, after about ten minutes I finally found the camera behind the red base where the car would be.

"Can you zoom in?" Woods suddenly asked, causing me to jump.

"I didn't see you back there dude." I said, putting a hand on my chest, I took a couple deep breaths before speaking again. "It's not like the movies, Woods." I chuckled.

After spending what seemed to be a half an hour I finally found the footage I was looking for, the Mountaineer moved. My jaw dropped as my eyes widened. Standing frozen for a few seconds, I glanced around the room for Woods, noticing he wasn't in the room anymore. "Woods!" I called out quickly, running to the doorway.

"Hello!" I called out again checking my watch noticing it was 5:11 which was closing time. Sprinting back to the desk, I ran my hands over my head, checking the timestamp. August 22, 9:17 AM.

"This is so creepy! Why is it driving so slow!" I screeched.

"Wait, can we see who's in it?" I questioned, pausing the video. At first I couldn't see anyone in the driver's seat causing me to look over the footage again. Pausing the video and looking closer at the screen, I gasped quickly leaning back from the screen. A tall skinny figure was sitting in the driver's seat. Behind me I could faintly hear the front door opening and then closing.

"Woods!?" I called out again.

"Yeah?" He answered back, causing me to sigh with relief.

"Come here, quick." I shouted.

Heavy fast footsteps came from the front to the building into my Mega Desk, office, as Woods appeared behind me shortly afterward.

"Bro look." I said, pointing to the screen.

"Wait, when did this happen?" Woods questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"A month ago." I replied, watching his face contort in horror.

"Ok." Woods stammered crossing his arms over his chest. "But we have the key." He pointed out as well.

That would mean someone has another key to the car as well. Because that key we had has been in the wall for who knows how long. " I said, shaking my head, watching Woods run his hands down his cheeks. I rewinded the footage so Woods could watch it.

"It's definitely scoping the place out." He said.

After letting the footage play for a couple seconds. Woods and I made a shocking discovery. Whoever was driving the car went back the other way.

"Okay, do we have a clear enough shot to see who is driving?" I asked, pausing the video. Zooming into the video, but we didn't have a good enough angle on their face. The question that popped into my head was why? I checked the car out this morning, and it still hasn't moved. It was still collecting dust. Why is someone circling our building?

The following morning Tanner I took a walk around the building and check the car to see if it had moved recently.

"Maybe we should talk to the building's owner next door." I suggested.

"To see if it belongs to someone over there?" Tanner asked.

"Yeah, sometimes they don't actually have a spot that belongs to them so people will park there." I explained.

"Should I poke it?" He joked as we walked past the car.

"No. Don't touch it." I chuckled.

After our walk we went to shoot GG, then I was off to a birthday lunch with Kevin. Once I was done with lunch Tanner, Pat, Kevin and I were remolding the room. We found the box of keys to be the Dope or Nope set. An hour passed of bouncing ideas around. As I was walking down the stairs, I remembered a comment I read that gave me an idea. I grabbed Patrick, galloped into the kitchen, grabbing the chalk that was on the counter, then finally headed to the back exit.

"So your plan is to put chalk on the tire?" Patrick questioned as we walked towards the car. Hopping over the small wall, glancing around the parking lot quickly, then bent down next to the tire. Marking the tire and the spot next to the tire.

That's really smart." Patrick said.

"This is how cops tell if you move a car." I explained.

"What if they see the line?" Patrick questioned.

"This is the right side of the vehicle, they won't see it if they get in the driver side." I said standing.

"So when will we come check? In a week?" Patrick asked, walking off the small wall.

"Um, I will try to remember to drive by every morning." I shrugged.

"Hear me out, what if we get a GoPro or a small camera and put it where nobody will see it facing the car?" Patrick suggested.

"We don't own these units so we can't do that without permission." I pointed out as Patrick nodded his head.

"There is one more thing I would like to do," I commented, hopping the small wall, walked to the driver's side and took a picture of the small sticker on the front windshield.

"What was that for?" Patrick requested.

"It says Navy base dude." I said, looking at the picture carefully as Patrick and I started walking back towards the base.

"What would that mean?" He asked.

"Whoever owns or abandoned the car or someone is in the military. I don't know." I commented, throwing my hands in the air as we entered the studio.


	7. ↠Birth of the Villain↞

Tuesday, October 8th

For the last couple days, it has been unbearably hot in Mega Desk; Before I could worry about the vent I had to shoot GG, after GG was shot the GG team and I went to lunch. After lunch I decided to work on some Mega Desk, the instant I entered the small black office I was overwhelmed by the heat. Sam and I started by moving the old Nope or Dope couch into the room.

"Do you have the AC on? It's so hot in here." Sam commented.

As we were moving everything we needed I put my hand in the air, not feeling any air coming out from the event.

"Hey Kevin! Can you ask Izzy?" I started.

"He's right here." Kevin interrupted, pointing behind him.

"Oh, right? Izzy, can you check the vent? I don't think they are working right." I questioned, pointing up towards the ceiling. I turned around and noticed Izzy had left.

"We can just do it." I chuckled, leaving the room to grab a ladder. I checked the first vent not finding anything wrong with it, I moved the ladder, and tried to move the grating but I couldn't move it. I heard the front door open, I leaned down seeing Woods and Hannah walked through the door.

"Oh, I thought Izzy came back." I sighed.

"What are you doing?" Woods asked, leaning against the open window.

"He's trying to fix the AC." Sam answered.

I tried to move the paneling next to the vent, but it felt like something was holding it down; I moved the couch away from the wall. I set up the ladder again, moved the paneling, I looked around the small vent but it was pitch dark.

"Do you have a flashlight?" I asked, watching Sam run off to find one. A few seconds passed and she came back with one. Using the flashlight, I saw something was on top of the vent, blocking the airflow. I pulled out the paneling and then handed it down to Sam and Hannah.

"Oh." I said, pulling the item from the vent and down onto the ladder. It was a small black safe.

"That was just sitting on top of the vent?" Sam asked.

"This isn't funny." I sighed.

"What is it?" Sam asked nervously. "It looks like a big metal box from my angle, please tell me it's just an electrical box." Sam begged.

"What is it?" Woods asked this time.

"It's a safe." I said solemnly.

I slowly climbed down the ladder and set the safe down on the couch. "What kind of safe is this?" I questioned. I took off my sunglasses and looked at Sam and Woods before smiling.

"Okay, the gig is up." I said, chuckling.

Sam and Woods looked at each other confused, "You two look like two siblings that just got caught." Hannah pointed out.

"It's not us!" Sam shouted.

"I'll go along with it." I sighed, putting my hands up.

"Go along with it? No, it's not me, don't look at me like that." Sam cried.

"There is a key on it, whatever these things are." I said wiping my thumb over the buttons watching them light up.

"Okay, at first I thought it was a joke. But that thing is really dirty, it was up in the vents, so that explains why the AC wasn't working." Woods said.

"How much more secure does someone need to get, it has a fingerprint scanner, buttons. So why throw it up in the vent?" Woods asked, pointing from the safe to the vent.

"Is that what that is?" Sam asked.

"Looks like it." Woods replied.

I swiped my thumb over the small scan, watching it light up blue. "That's a fingerprint scanner." I said, backing away.

"Okay, do you trust me that this isn't my setup." Sam questioned.

"Put your finger on the scanner." Woods and I said in unison.

I watched Sam sit down on the floor, gently scanning her pointer finger. The small light next to the scanner lit up red, next she tried her thumb and the same thing happened. After Sam tried a bunch of different fingers, the buttons didn't light up anymore, the safe was locked out.

"So it wasn't me." Sam said.

"How does that make you safe?" I asked

"Because I have tried all these fingers." She explained, holding up the fingers.

"This is what I think that happened. You tried too many fingers and now we are locked out of the safe." I explained.

"From any of the keys we have, do you think any of them will work?" Woods asked.

"I don't think so. The safe looks like it needs a circular key." I said.

"I think you use these buttons as a combination." I added.

"Can we just break it open?" Hannah suggested.

"The problem with that is, we don't know what's in it. We could damage whatever is in it as well." I said.

"Should we ask Izzy?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, we'll ask him when he gets back." I said noticing Izzy was walking up to the door.

"To be honest, it looks like a gun safe." I said.

"It looks too big to be a gun safe. Also, it seems useless to throw the gun up in the vents. What if you need it?" Woods argued.

I was quite thinking to myself for a minute. "What if you didn't need it?" I asked.

"You mean like you were trying to hide it?" Woods asked.

"Why would you want to hide it?" Sam questioned.

"Because it's evidence." Hannah said.

"I thought it got real with the car moving." Woods chuckled.

"I hate how unphased I feel, that we found a gun safe in our ceiling." Sam shrugged.

"Wait, you said it got real with the car. How would this be connected?" I asked, holding up a finger.

"How could it not!?" Woods shouted.

"Look, there is Kevin, maybe he knows something." I said carrying the safe out to his office setting it in front of him.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Looks like a lock box or something." Kevin responded nervously.

"I got a meeting." Kevin said. My jaw dropped watching Kevin walk away.

"I found that in the ceiling, dude!" I shouted.

"No, you didn't." Kevin said.

"That's what was blocking the air flow." Sam shouted, pointing towards the vent.

"Shut it." Kevin said walking into the office.

"I'm not messing with you." I called, following him.

"Bro." Kevin said expecting the hole.

"How bad was the AC in there?" I asked.

"Alex always complained it was always hot in there." Sam inputted.

"Shake it to see if there is anything in it." Woods suggested. I gently picked up the safe, shaking it hard. I could hear a faint rattle coming from inside.

"Didn't you find the key in the ceiling too?" Woods asked.


	8. ↠Syphus↞

Monday, October 12th

While I was at the studio before I went home for the day, I checked on Reddit. Scrolling through, I noticed a lot of posts were about the safe, we had found in the air ducks. Many people thought it was a gun safe, while others left interesting facts. Just because it is a gun safe doesn't mean a gun was inside. As I was reading the comments, Kevin entered the office.

"Come sit on my lap." I joked, patting my knee. Kevin trekked further into the room, barely sitting on my knee. Standing, Kevin bent down onto her knees, I adjusted the camera to fit him on the screen then continued scrolling.

After scrolling through a couple memes, Kevin left the office. I scrolled down a couple times when a post caught my attention. It was a picture of the safe, but with a red circle around it that seemed to be a name: Syphus. The dust must have hidden the name the first time we looked at the safe. Did Syphus own the safe? Was Syphus behind all of this? The only thing that was important was now he had a name.

We passed a couple memes before finding a creepy comic about the safe we had found. I read the comic slowly when I finished, a chill crept down my back. "Everyone is on Sam, is Sam the imposter?" I asked myself. Half of me knew it was a joke. But the other half had some self doubt.

"Could Sam be behind all of this?" I thought, but shook my head. After shaking that thought from my mind, I continued forward, finding some more posts about the '863' key and how to open the safe. Until I found another video, but this one was about how to open the safe with only a zip tie. My curiosity peaked, I quickly clicked the video. When the demonstrator opened the safe and all was in, it was bolts all I could do was laugh.

"If this guy has bolts in the safe, I'm not scared." I chuckled to myself while pressing play again. I watched the demonstrator bend the metal zip tie, then fished it into the safe after a couple minutes. The safe popped open.

"No way, stop it. That's crazy to me that the safe is that poorly made." I shrilled. "Maybe Woods can go with me to Home Depot and I think we should try it though." I added quickly. "I wonder if Woods is here." I muttered, pushing out my chair.

"Woods!" I called.

"Yeah?" He answered, walking into the room.

"I want to show you something. Do we have metal zip ties?" I replied, bringing up the video.

"No. Why?" Woods asked.

"Because, there are a ton of things I wanted to show you. Did you see the writing?" I asked, bringing up the Syphus post.

"That's on the safe?" Woods questioned.

"Yeah, I didn't see that when we were filming. That's not even the crazy thing." I said, bringing up the video.

"Oh, ok." Woods chirped.

"All he does is put the zip tie in the safe and wiggle it and it opens." I explained as Woods watched the video. "What!? What kind of safe is that?" He quizzed as we both laughed aloud.

"That's what I said, so can we do this?" I asked.

"Yeah, totally, we can get them at Home Depot." Woods shrugged.

"Then let's do it." I agreed.

I let out a sigh of relief, one thing was for sure: without Reddit or the viewers, we wouldn't also have a way to open the safe which meant one step closer to finding out whatever was inside.


	9. ↠Cryptic Codes↞

Wednesday October 14th

While I was shooting a couple videos with the team, I finally wanted to go get the VIN Number from the car. Hopefully, later this week we could go to the DMV to finally reveal who this car belongs too. 

“Do you have the 155 key?” I asked Sam as we walked around the base to find Woods. 

“Yup, right here in my bag.” She said guestering towards it. 

“Okay, let’s go get the VIN Number.” I said walking towards the backdoor exit. 

“Just looking at it gives me bad vibes.” Sam commented as we drew closer towards the car. 

“I know, I don’t like how the license plate on the front of the car is missing.” I replied nervously. 

We stopped a couple feet from the car, Sam pulled her bag from her back, fishing through until she found the key. I grabbed the key from Sam, staring at the car for a few seconds.

“We’re right here if you need us.” Woods called as I walked closer. 

I climbed over the small stone wall. When an idea hit me, we haven’t checked the tires in a while. Moving around the car to the other side, noticing everything still was the same. I went back around to the driver’s side, punching in the code on the code pad. Opening the door, I crouched down examining the inside of the door making a shocking discovery. The VIN Number was scratched off. 

“The VIN Number is scratched off.” I said. 

Sam and Woods looked at each other than back at me, “Is it completely scratched off? Or can we salvage part of it still?” Sam questioned. 

“Now what do we do? I am lost.” I sighed, closing the door partly. Everyone was silent for a long minute until I came to my conclusion. 

“Here is what I am going to do, I am going to sit in the driver seat and I am going to give it a quick glance around.” I finally said, sitting in the driver's seat. I glanced around the car quickly, not finding anything unusual. I checked the glove box, and the passenger seat’s window visor, before checking the driver’s side. When I flipped the visor open, a piece of paper landed in my lap, causing me to freeze. 

“What was that?” Woods asked as I slowly picked up the paper. Opening it, finding it had a picture of the safe. I quickly put the paper back, laughing nervously as I exited the car and closed the door. 

“What was that?” Woods and Sam both asked in unison. I couldn’t speak, all I could do was laugh. 

“Don’t laugh like that.” Sam cried as I quickly started walking away from the car. When I was a good enough distance away, I turned to Sam and Woods. 

“I am 85% sure on the paper there is a picture of a safe.” I started. 

“You’re lying.” Sam pleaded. 

“No, I’m not. There was a gun in it, ” I stated. 

“Did you grab it?” Sam asked. 

“Honestly, I saw that it had a gun in it and got spooked.” I replied. 

“Did you grab the paper?” Sam asked, glancing over at the car. 

“Was there anything on it?” Woods asked. 

“There was writing on it.” I guessed. 

“What did it say?” Sam quizzed. 

“Honestly, it was random.” I sighed, putting a hand over my face. “Here, hold this.” I suddenly said handing Sam my cane then began walking back to the car. I opened the car door again, quickly taking a picture of the paper. I then locked the car and rushed back. 

“Let’s get back inside.” I whispered, racing back inside, Finding Hannah. 

“Did you grab the paper?” Sam asked. 

“I took a picture.” I confirmed pulling out my phone, then showed the picture. 

“That’s the same safe, it even has the fingerprint scanner.” She screeched. 

“What is that writing?” Woods asked. 

“Looks to be some sort of password.” Hannah pointed out. 

“Can you read that?” I questioned. 

“It looks like a four-year-old wrote it.” Sam commented. 

“Or someone who is shaky.” I added. Then everyone looked at Woods. 

“Did you put that in the car!?” Sam shouted. 

“I’m not that shaky and I don’t write.” Woods argued. 

“Can you read that?” I asked again, holding the phone for Woods to read. 

“I can’t read the top part, but the bottom is: uz$jk$mED,” Woods started reading when I stopped him. 

“No, the top part is that an s?” I asked, pointing to the screen. 

“Shypus?” Sam read off. 

I froze, my mind was going a mile a minute. “Is this a combination to the safe?” I suddenly asked. 

“No, it doesn’t have any numbers or letters,” Sam pointed out. 

“They could have ripped this paper off to write this.” Woods said. 

“Wait, wait, the thing we aren’t even acknowledging is the fact Woods was right. This means the safe is connected to the car out there.” Sam explained in a defeated tone. 

“Dude, stop, I’m getting chills.” I said, putting a hand on my mouth. 

“That also means not only does it mean that the car is connected to the box of keys we found in the wall.” Sam concluded. 

“Wait, run your thinking by me again.” I said, waving my hands in front of me. 

“So, we opened the box of keys, that Connor busted open. That led us to the 155 key, which then led us to the car. So until now it has been just car to keys, but this paper connected the safe to the keys we found in the wall.” Sam explained. 

“Didn’t we already come to that conclusion?” Hannah asked. 

“I did.” Woods said, raising his hand. “I don’t see how it can’t be connected.” He added. 

“Different bases!” I shouted. 

“Now we have confirmation that it’s not. It’s in a lot of these bases.” Sam said.

“Can we look at the safe?” I asked, walking towards the stars. 

“Yeah, I have it up in my office.” Sam sighed, following behind with Woods and Hannah. 

Once we made it to Sam’s office, Sam pulled the safe from behind the couch. After examining the safe and the picture we discovered it is in fact the same safe. 

“There is a gun in the picture, so this is a gun safe.” I sighed. 

“There are too many components for this to work on the safe.” I said again, moving outside of the office. 

“I have no doubt the car and the safe are connected, but I don’t think whatever is written on that paper is connected to the safe.” Woods said. 

“So I have been doing research and been re-watching the videos. The keys you found in the ceiling said century on them.” Sam said. 

“Do we still have that key?” I asked, going back into Sam’s office. 

“I honestly don’t know what we did with it.” She admitted. 

“My brain is exploding, all of this is connected.” I said, running a hand over my head. 

A couple days passed, I spent those days reading comments finding different ways to get the VIN Number off the mountaineer. After taking a picture of the VIN Number off the car, Sam, Woods, CJ and I drove to the DMV. 

“Okay, so you guys will stay in the car, I am going to go in and ask some questions.” I ordered. 

After an hour, I rushed back to the car. “Guys, I have information. We can claim the car.” I said, sitting in the driver's seat. 

Sam’s eyes widened,“Wait really?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah, they said they will have to look at the car and then they will tow it.” I explained. 

“Oh my god, this car is going to be ours.” Sam chirped.


	10. ↠Breaking Point↞

Monday, October 19th 

At first it was nothing, it was just a late night notification everyone gets them right before bed. I didn't think anything of it, just went to sleep and would look at it in the morning. That was my first mistake, It wasn't nothing. Someone tried to break in.

As fast as I could I got dressed and raced out of the house. Speeding down the highway, bolting from my car I quickly ran into my office turning on the computers. Then brought up the security camera footage from last night. At 10:30 I watched what seemed to be a medium built male, wearing a black leather jacket with a hood,baseball cap, black jeans and shoes walking past the front door of the studio. After a couple minutes passed the male walked up to the front door, glancing around a couple times before knocking on the door.

After what I assumed the male thought was safe he stuffed his hand into his jacket pocket. Pulling something out but he covered it with his hands, making it impossible to see. Once he stuffed the item back into his pocket, he tried to open the door, but it wouldn't open, causing the man to get angry and slammed his hands against the glass. The man took a couple breaths before walking away.

"Jeez Dude, good thing I didn't watch this last night. I don't think I would have been able to sleep." I sighed, leaning back in my chair.

Behind me, I could hear the front door opening, "Hello?" I called.

"Yo, what's up?" Kevin called back.

"Bro, come here." I replied. I pulled up the footage from inside the studio, and showed the video to Kevin. As we were watching the video I heard a small beep coming from the door.

"Hear that?" I asked, glancing over at Kevin, who shook his head. "He used a Key Fob." I answered.

"Oh, he tried a Key Fob?" Kevin exclaimed.

"He must have, but it didn't seem to work." I said.

"So it must be a deactivated one." Kevin concluded. "If he used a Key Fob, I can go check the activity on my computer." Kevin added quickly.

"Can you check that out for me?" I asked, Kevin nodded his head quickly standing, then rushed to his desk, I turned on the lights in the lobby then walked over towards Kevin's desk.

"Did you find anything?" I asked.

"Yeah, the log says: Failed Access: Unknown Credentials."

"Does it really!?" I screeched, while Kevin nodded his head.

"Why would it do that? Would that be because it's deactivated?" I asked while CJ walked through the door.

"Yeah, so anyone can get a Key Fob, but ours have a specific code that makes it where they can get into our systems. The thing is, this system was here before we were, so when we bought the place I tried to wipe all the existing Key Fobs in the system." Kevin explained.

"Did something happen?" CJ asked, putting his hands over his chest.

"Someone broke in." I explained, holding out my hand.

"Are you joking?" CJ asked.

"No." I replied.

"Thing is, since that lamp was on he knocked first, waited for a bit and then tried a Key Fob." Kevin said.

"I'm going to ask around and see if anyone recognizes the person." I said, walking up the stairs to my office, I opened my cabinet pulling out some Goldfish.

"The question is who and why? Is it an old employee? Or is a fan trying to get in?" I asked.

"That guy looked a bit more sinister." CJ Pointed out.

"Hey Sam." I called watching her climb the stairs and then unlock her office.

"How are you? How's your morning?" I asked as Sam pushed open the door.

"Fine why?" She asked, setting her backpack down.

"I'm here to make it worse." I laughed, showing her the footage.

"Really?" She sighed.

"He knocked on the door like twice and then used a Key Fob." I said handing Sam the phone.

"Is that his car?" She asked.

"No, he ran off in the other direction." I explained.

"Why does he have a Key Fob?" She asked fast forwarding through the footage.

"Well the thing Kevin told me is that the type we use is common, so it's not a surprise he has one the thing that is surprising is that he used it and it beeped meaning he had the right key." I said.

"My question to you is, do you think this is just a fan?" I asked.

Sam thought to herself for a long minute, bouncing back and forth. "It's scary, but my answer would have to be no." She sighed.

"Because why would a fan come here at 10:30 at night when none of us are here?" Sam added while I laughed nervously

"Maybe it was Woods!" I shouted, walking outside of the office.

"That doesn't look like Woods." Sam argued.

"It could be, he could have forgotten something." I begged putting my hands together.

"At 10:30 at night?" Sam asked, raising her eyebrow.

"I'll ask." I sighed, walking down the stairs to Woods's office.

"Good morning, what's the likelihood you came back to the studio at like 10:30 to grab something?" I asked sitting in the chair next to him.

"Not likely." Woods answered nervously looking from me to Sam then back to me.

"Why?" He asked, I took out my phone, pulled up the clip then handed it to Woods.

"He didn't break in did he?" Woods asked.

"Is it really breaking in if you have a key?" I countered.

"Oh he used a Fob." He said.

"I talked to Kevin and it said Unknown Credentials" I said.

"Let me see if he broke anything." I sighed standing then walked over to the front door. When inspecting the door everything seemed fine.

"Can we safely assume." Woods started speaking, but I waved my hands in front of me.

"No stop. Don't even make it real right now." I shouted.

"Can we safely assume this isn't connected to the safe and the car." Woods said quickly.

"I knew you were going to say that." I sighed facing the door while running a hand over my mouth.

"This is getting too real. "Woods started speaking again but this time Sam cut him off.

"No. For my own sanity I'm going to say no." Sam argued.

"WHY!?" Woods shouted.

"There is nothing to connect it!" Sam shouted back.

"Really? Because once we found that safe. Suddenly someone is trying to break in? That's too convenient." Woods argued.

"I'm just going to say it was someone who was just trying to break in." Sam concluded raising her hands.


	11. ↠Liquid Fire↞

Saturday, October 24th

I was excited today for a couple things today. Today Dope or Nope is changing locations as well as Woods and I are going to try that jimmy lock idea the viewer's had. After the first video for GG was shot I decided I was going check in with the new Dope or Nope set.

"Nothing in these vents." Patrick joked as he was climbing the ladder.

"Can you check up there for me?" I asked.

"I already did and found nothing, but I am keeping an eye out. Patrick replied. "I didn't get a chance to look up in the vents of old Dope or Nope set though." He added.

"Yeah, but we have been up there plenty of times." I argued.

After talking with Patrick for a couple more minutes, I headed back to GG to get the last video recorded for this day. Once GG was all done with, I met up with Woods.

"You said you already went to Home Depot?" I questioned.

"Yeah, they don't have what we are looking for, we can try Lowes or an Auto Shop.." Woods suggested as we left the studio.

"Not to downsize the situation, but have we actually stopped to think what was in the safe? My first assumption would be what everyone is telling us....a gun. Or a really critical document." I asked parking the car.

We wandered the store for what seemed like an hour before discovering they were out of what we needed. I didn't want to go back to the studio empty handed, so I grabbed thin metal hose clamps. Once the item was paid we tried Lowes, but also came out with what we didn't need. We came out with some Scrap metal. Once the items were paid for we headed back towards the studio.

"Sam!" I called walking into the office.

"Yeah?" She called back.

"We got all the supplies, can you go grab the safe?" I asked, opening the packaging.

"Yeah." Sam replied quickly jogging up the stairs. A couple minutes passed when suddenly a loud crash came from upstairs.

"Are you okay!?" I shouted rushing towards the stairs.

"Yeah." Sam drawled out.

"What happened?" I asked quickly.

"Matt I dropped the safe." Sam replied in a defeated tone.

"Are you sure, you're okay?" I quizzed climbing up the stairs. Sam nodded her head, handing me the two pieces of the safe that broke off.

"Matt I'm sorry." Sam cried, carrying the safe down the stairs behind me, when we hit the bottom step I noticed something leaking from the side of the safe.

"Watch out!" I screeched watching Sam set the safe down onto the ground.

"Let's clean it up." Hannah suggested.

"No, we don't know what it is." I replied, bending down and dragging the safe cross the flooring. Clear liquid gushed out from the side of the safe forming several small pools across the flooring.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you." I said, standing quickly then moved towards the door.

"Did you get any on you Sam?" I questioned walking over to Sam.

"Yeah, I think I am good." She confirmed checking her pants.

"It could be water who knows." I shrugged, grabbing one of the hose clips, then walked back over to the safe. As I was unscrewing the hose clamp I noticed the liquid wasn't drying.

"This might be too thick, but worth a shot." I sighed stuffing the end of the metal into the side of the safe. As I was trying to catch the locking mechanism I noticed a pungent smell.

"Something smells funky." I commented.

"Probably that safe juice." Woods joked.

After a few tries Woods and I gave up, "Woods do you want to try and figure out how to clean this up?" I asked watching Woods disappear into the armory.

A couple minutes passed before Woods appeared behind me again, with a couple rags and a bucket. Woods placed the rag on the liquid and began wiping it up when suddenly the rag caught on fire. Woods made a noise causing us to turn around quickly.

"What did you do!?" I shouted, watching Woods try and stomp on the fire but the fire didn't exhaust.

"No, don't do that!" I shouted again.

Kevin calmly walked out from his desk, grabbed the fire extinguisher next to him, then put the fire out.

"Open the door." I ordered.

"Let's go outside." Hannah said, waving the smoke from her face while walking outside.. We all followed her quickly.

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"I don't know, I just put the rag on it." Woods explained. "What fluid does that!?" Woods shouted.

"I don't know, I'm not a chemist." I replied.

"It's scary to think, that was just sitting there under my couch." Sam said

"So there is something highly flammable in that safe." Woods came to the conclusion of.

"What do we do with the safe now?" Hannah asked.

"It doesn't seem to affect plastic, so do we have a bin or something we can put it in?" I asked. Woods went into the storage room, quickly grabbing a small bin, Sam gently lifted the safe off the ground, finding a large pool of the liquid had formed underneath. Sam placed the safe in the tub, then walked up the stairs to put the safe back behind her couch.


	12. ↠Burn↞

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to upload this chapter, I had to help move some rooms around the house and I didn't expect it to take as long as it did. This chapter is another dialogue heavy base chapter, I am finding out the further in the series, there is a lot more dialogue than I thought there would be. 
> 
> I do have a question, does anyone know if you can get fanfiction published? I know I need permission from the creator and stuff, but I have been getting a lot of comments asking if I could turn this into a book. I honestly would love to, but I want to respect Matthias's crew and life. So if anyone can answer my questions that would be great.

Monday, October 26th

The next day, while I was working in my home office, I got a voicemail from Sam.

“Matt, can you come to the office? Something happened, I don’t think you will believe me if I told you.” She whined.

I let out a sigh, “How serious, like do you need me right away? Or do I have time to do a thumbnail” I questioned.

After a couple seconds I got a response back, “I mean it could be a thumbnail, I think you should come in, in all seriousness though.” Sam replied,

Chuckling to myself slightly, “Okay, I’ll be right in.” I said.

Driving twenty minutes from home, I made it to the office.

“Sam?” I called jogging up the stairs, I got to the second landing when Sam walked out of her office. Sam shrugged, almost giving up.

“What?” I asked nervously.

“You’re seriously not going to believe me if I told you, just come here.” Sam said gesturing towards her office.

As I was walking up the stairs, I noticed the brown splotches splattered across the wall, as well as the giant chunk taken out of the wall.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“That’s when I dropped the safe.” Sam explained walking to her office. When I walked up to Sam’s office, the smell of chemicals engulfed my nose causing me to take a couple steps back from the shock.

“Okay, Sam, why are you being so weird?” I quizzed.

“Because this doesn’t make sense!” She shouted while clapping her hands together.

“What does that even mean?” I replied.

“The safe!” She shouted, pointing towards it. “Under the couch where I have been storing it” Sam continued.

“Why is it under the couch?” I requested.

“Because that’s where I have been storing it this entire time, but I put it in the plastic bin so that doesn’t matter.” Sam exclaimed.

“It does?” I asked, putting a hand over my mouth.

“Just move.” Sam ordered, waiting for me to move out into the lobby before moving the couch. At first nothing seemed to be different about the safe.

“How did you find this?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“The smell of chemicals in my office was overwhelming.” She admitted.

Sam started lifting the bin when I grabbed her wrist to stop her, “You’re talking about something chemically, you need gloves.” I said.

Sam pushed past me to grab gloves, we went back downstairs, finding Woods walking through the front door, and Kevin working in the dark.

“Kevin why are you working in the dark?” Sam asked.

“Because.” Kevin responded, standing from his desk, then turned on the light.

“Okay, first we all need to lower our anxiety.” I suggested, but Sam shook her head aggressively.

“No, No. You’re not ready for this.” She exclaimed, running back up the stairs.

“Why is Sam freaking out?” Kevin asked following behind as well as Woods.

“You know how we thought it didn’t affect plastic? Well, it affects plastic.” Sam said, walking back into her office.

“Oh, so you’re just saying it melted the plastic.” I shrugged.

“No.” Sam responded quickly, lifting the safe from the plastic revealing a large hole burned through the plastic bin and the flooring.

“Wait, wait!” I shouted.

“It went through the carpet.” Sam confirmed. “That’s not even the worst part.” She added. The hole burned to the first floor, forming a large puddle.

“You’re kidding me!?” I screeched.

“No, Woods go downstairs and turn on the light in the armory.” Sam said, holding out her hand. A few minutes passed when the armory light turned on, and I could see Woods through the burned hole.

“No, freaking way. I feel like I am losing my mind.” I shouted, laughing nervously.

“I haven’t even gone down to the armory yet either.” Sam sighed.

I rushed down the stairs, noticing CJ was also in the studio.”CJ grab the camera, I can’t right now man.” I exclaimed.

“What happened?” He asked.

I glanced up at him, only responding with a laugh. “Kevin.”

“What?” He responded.

“Um, we have a leak.” I finally said.

“Bro, I can’t even right now.” He sighed, putting his head in his hands.

“Come here.” I said leading everyone to the armory.

“Did someone pee on the floor?” Kevin asked, glancing down at the puddle.

“Sam, are you still up there?” I called.

“Yeah.” Sam responded lowly.

“Is the safe still over the hole? I don’t want anyone looking up if it’s still leaking.” I responded.

“No.” She called back quickly.

“Look up.” I said.

Both Kevin and CJ looked up noticing the hole. “Whoa, what the heck?” They both exclaimed.

“What is it? What did you guys do?” Kevin asked.

“What do you mean you guys? This is the safe dude.” I responded.

“Bro, yesterday you guys started a fire, I still don’t know how you did that. You can actually see through the entire.” Kevin started saying before waving his hands in front of him and left the room.

“Quick question, can we fix it?” I pleaded.

“What even is that?” Kevin asked, pointing at the liquid.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged defeatedly.

“Is that the same liquid that started the fire yesterday?” He asked, pointing to the spot.

“Yes.” I nodded my head.

“What does it look like upstairs?” Hannah suddenly asked, appearing behind Kevin.

“A lot worse.” I commented, leading Kevin, Woods, and Hannah up the stairs pointing to the brown splotches and the chunk out of the wall then into Sam’s office.

“Broooooo.” Kevin exclaimed.

“This is what the liquid does overnight, there was still some liquid in the bottom of the bucket when I lifted it the first time.” Sam explained.

“What were you guys doing playing with acid or something?” Kevin asked.

“I don’t know any acid that does that.” Woods commented.

“You know insurance doesn’t cover, acid right?” Kevin asked, glancing around the room.

“Well, technically we don't know what it is, so maybe it will cover it.” I pleaded.

Kevin bent down next to the hole, gliding his finger across the burnt plywood. “Don’t touch it.” I shouted quickly.

“We need gloves or something.” I said, watching Hannah race off to find some. Only to reappear a second later. We all put on our gloves, Sam carefully lifted the bin observing it as she was taking it to the dumpster.

“So it doesn’t seem to be eating the safe, so we need to store it in something metal.” I pointed out.

“I have a metal tray.” Sam said.

“Okay, let’s do that.” I nodded quickly. :Our top priority right now, is to get that safe in the metal tray and to clean up the puddle downstairs.” I listed off with my fingers.

“Where are we going to store the metal tray? In my office again?” Sam screeched as everyone left.

“Well, we can’t leave this outside, it would be taken.” I pointed out.

“Okay,” Sam replied, going downstairs to grab a cookie tray. Sam carefully placed the safe on the tray, then stored it behind her couch again. Once we finished, we went downstairs, finding the bin next to the stairs.

“This is your method of getting rid of it?” Sam joked.

“If Kevin isn’t worried about it, then I’m not either.” I commented walking into the armory. “We need to take the ceiling tile out.” I added with a sigh.

I removed the sprinkler, then pulled the ceiling tile off noticing that the liquid burned smaller holes through the titling. “Legitimately what the heck is that liquid.” I asked.

“Woods threw out the idea of Acid, but I don’t know what Acid looks like.” Sam said putting her hands on her hips. Sam and I threw ideas back and forth for a couple minutes before I threw my hands up in the air with defeat.

A few hours passed after the incident, I had enough time to calm down and observe the safe more closely. I didn’t see it the first time, but on closer inspection, I noticed what seemed to be a Celtic symbol on the back of the safe. It was hard to make out, but the symbol looked to be a Celtic snake knot. What does this symbol mean? Who does it belong to?


	13. ↠What the Fob!?↞

Friday, October 30th

I was expecting this, a day before Halloween, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to prank me? Everyone does some sort of prank on the day or the day of Halloween, its tradition really. So I didn’t think of anything of it at first, but unfortunately this wasn’t a prank. While working in my home office, I received a voicemail this time from Hannah. Leaning my elbows against my desk, I let out a sigh.

“Hey Matt, I don’t know if you are coming in or not. But I am the first person in the studio and the place is trashed. I don’t know if someone broke in or what, but I don’t know what to do.” Hannah explained in a shaky voice.

Leaning back in the chair I ran a hand over my face, “How trashed is the place? Like someone left their gear out? Or what?” I responded back.

I waved goodbye to Amanda and Luna, grabbed my stuff, then headed to the car. As I was getting in the car I got a voicemail from Kevin telling me the same thing Hannah described. Speeding to the office, I parked the car, noticing the neighbor's window was boarded up.

“That doesn’t look good.” I commented, walking through the front door discovering a bunch of stuff was thrown around on the ground.

“Hannah, what happened?” I called walking to the kitchen. “What are you talking about? This mess out here?” I continued.

“It wasn’t like this when I left last night, and I know you didn’t leave it like this either. So I didn’t know if you were moving stuff around or you were doing a project or something. But this is what I thought was weird, Kevin never leaves his desk like this.” Hannah said.

“Yeah, no that’s weird.” I agreed. “I would be more worried if I didn't get any notifications from Ness camera alerts or alarm alerts.” I shrugged.

“You didn’t get anything?” Hannah asked.

Hannah and I walked upstairs seeing Sam’s office’s door was open as well as her office was destroyed.

“Do you think I should call Sam in?” I asked. Hannah nodded her head slowly.

“I will look through the cameras, though.” I added as we walked back downstairs running into CJ.

“Do you know who was the last one to leave?” I asked walking into his office.

“No, I left at the first opportunity.” CJ replied shrugging.

“Did you see the mess?” I asked.

“I honestly thought it was you.” CJ laughed.

“Why does everyone think it’s me?” I chuckled. “Well is anything missing?” I asked, glancing around the room.

“I don’t think so.” CJ answered.

“What kind of thief doesn’t steal all these cameras?” I said, walking out of CJ’s office meeting Woods at the front door.

“Why is everything on the ground?” He asked as he signed in.

“I was going as you the same thing.” I chuckled.

“Stop.” Wood chuckled while shaking his head.

“No, seriously, when did you leave last night?” I questioned again.

“Like 5:15.” Woods shrugged.

“So you’re saying you didn’t make the big mess. Because Sam’s office is also a mess too.” I confirmed.

“Is it?” Woods asked, when Sam walked through the door.

"Did you clean up your office before you left?" Woods and I asked in unison.

"Yeah, I put everything back the way it was. Why?" Sam replied.

"Because it's trashed." I said.

"What!? Who was the last one out?" She questioned.

"I was." Woods said, raising his hand.

"Did you arm the alarm last night?" She asked.

"Yeah, like I do every night." Woods said nodding his head.

I leaned against the counter, as my phone buzzed. I got a voicemail from Pat.

"Hey, I know you're not in the office right now. But I wanted to know if you grabbed the Stream Deck?" Patrick asked.

"Maybe it was Pat." Hannah suggested wiggling her eyebrow.

"I was thinking that too, before I saw the Stream Deck right here." I said, picking it up from the small pile in front of the store cabinet.

"What about the Common Office?" Sam asked, walking up the stairs to her office.

"I didn't see anything messed up. And I'm assuming you didn't leave it like this last night." I questioned.

"No." Sam said, glancing around her office.

"Sam, what about the box of keys?" I quickly asked.

"Oh, I took them home with me last night." Sam replied.

“First before we check the cameras, we should ask everyone in the studio if they left the mess.” Hannah suggested.

I nodded my head, quickly sending a voice mail to everyone. As I was waiting for everyone to reply, I went back downstairs and booted up my computer and then the Ness Cameras. After scrolling through the feed I found what I was looking for and honestly my heart stopped when I watched the footage.

He came back, knocking on the door once again. He glanced through the window, after a couple seconds he glanced around his surroundings before a beep could be heard through the camera. Then, he opened the door. Once he was inside, he went straight to Kevin’s desk opening the drawers and then started throwing everything on the floor.

“Can you tell Hannah to call the authorities immediately.” I asked turned to Sam.

“Yeah, how did the Key Fob work!? Can Kevin look it up?” Sam shouted.

“Let’s go ask him right now.” I said, pausing the footage then rushed up the stairs with Sam. “Hey Kevin can you do me a favor? Can you check the key logs again?” I asked as I walked in.

“Around what time?” Kevin asked.

“7:30 Someone used a Key Fob and got access to our building.” I said.

“How do you know?” Kevin asked.

“Because I just watched the footage.” I replied.

“This is the only person who I don’t recognize.” Kevin said pointing to the log.

I leaned in closer so I could see the computer and froze. My heart was beating out of my chest as blood rushed to my ears. Syphus590. “How is that possible! That’s the same username that was in the car.” I said.

“It says he logged in at 7:39 on the 15th.And they only accessed the blue base.” Kevin read off.

“Can you tell how long ago that Key Fob has been made?” I asked crouching down.

“I can.” Kevin said, bringing up the log.

“2014? That’s six years ago.” I said.

“That’s before we were even here. So how does that work?” Sam asked frantically.

I couldn’t think, thoughts were going a mile a minute in my head. I took in a shaky breath as I put a hand over my mouth. “That’s way before we got here, because we got this unit in 2017. So does the security system we have we inherited it?” I came to the conclusion.

“Yeah, but honestly I thought I wiped the whole entire thing.” Kevin admitted.

“You can remove that now right?” I quizzed.

“Yes.” Kevin replied.

“Okay, let’s do that right now please.” I begged.

“The thing that doesn’t make sense is that this is so obviously the same guy as before so why did he have a Key Fob that didn’t work and how did he get one that does work. How does that work?” I asked standing.

“Two different ideas, one he knows someone who works at the security system and they gave him the Fob. Or he had a couple of keys and guessed the first time.” Kevin listed off.

“Something isn’t adding up.” I commented.

“But, it makes sense why I didn’t get a notification from the alarm.” Kevin said.

“That deactivates the alarm?” I asked.

“Yeah, but not everyone’s Key Fob does that though. You need a twenty for seven access Key fob to be able to deactivate alarms like he did.” Kevin explained.

“You were talking about tires, can you check what tier he was?” I questioned.

“No, I just revoked the Fob.” Kevin sighed.

“Okay, what level do you need to do stuff like this?” I asked again.

“Executive.” Kevin answered

“Like what you and Matt have?” Sam quizzed.

“Yeah.” Kevin nodded

“Okay, Okay, Okay, I am going to go look through the footage more.” I said walking out of the room. Once I got back to my office I quickly resumed the video.

“How long was he here for?” I asked. Going through the feed, finding Shypus was in the office from 7:36 to 7:46 which wasn’t that long. I watched Shypus trash Kevin’s desk.

“He’s obviously your normal burglar or he would have taken the computer and the other expensive equipment.” Sam pointed out.

Once Shypus was finished tearing through Kevin’s desk he then went into the Common Office for a brief second. Syphus then went into Megadesk. After spending what seemed to be a few minutes in the office he went upstairs. Kevin went over to Kevin’s office rattling the doorknob, then continued until he went to Sam’s office before going back downstairs. Then began tearing through the storage cabinet. Loud clattering echoed throughout the office.

Shypus looked to start getting frustrated, he stormed down the hallway into the storage room. He seemed to have taken a deep breath before walking back upstairs and booted in Sam’s office door open. All I could hear through the camera was him rummaging through everything.

“Why would he go straight for my office?” Sam asked.

“Because, the keys and the safe are in your office.” I sighed.

Shypus quickly came into view, heavy breathing could be heard from the camera. I watched him scramble to remove his jacket then pull something out from the side of his pants. all I could hear was heavy breathing. A couple seconds passed when suddenly Shypus let out a blood curdling scream. I jumped out of my seat, throwing my headphones onto the desk.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, voice laced with concern.

“He’s screaming.” I explained handing the headphones to Woods and Sam.

“That’s a scream of pain..” Woods pointed out.

“What is he doing? Is he moving something?” Sam asked, moving closer towards the screen.

We watched Shypus stumble out of Sam’s office, panting heavily as he struggled to put his jacket back on as he left.

“What was he doing in your office Sam?” I asked nervously.

“I don’t know, the keys are fine.” Sam explained.

When a thought came to me, I put a hand over my mouth. “The safe.” I said.

“Which was under the couch.” Sam confirmed.

We all rushed up the stairs, I quickly grabbed some gloves, before sliding the safe out from under the couch.

“It’s open.” I said looking around the group. I placed the safe on the arm of the couch then slowly opened it.

“What’s in it?” Sam asked, all I could respond with was a nervous laugh. “Okay, so it’s a gun….but it’s not a gun I have ever seen before.” I responded.


	14. ↠The Gun↞

Monday, November 2nd

Everyone was quiet, glancing at one another. Their faces were a mixture of fear, and a little bit of confusion. "Matt, what's in the safe?" Sam was the first to speak, her voice trembling slightly.

I looked down at the safe for a brief minute before releasing a soft sigh, then I slowly turned the safe revealing what seemed to be an injection gun, but the glass tubing in the middle was thankfully empty. Next to the gun were three slots, one of those slots had a small brown bottle with the same symbol I found on the back of the safe. The other two slots were empty.

"What is that?" Sam questioned cautiously. "That's what broke." Sam added, pointing to the melted foam surrounding the bottle.

I quickly pulled on some gloves, as Woods entered the room expecting the gun closely. "That's the most terrifying thing I have ever seen." Sam said crouching down next to me. Hannah plastered herself against the back wall, unable to speak. She stood silently, hands over her mouth looking to be on the verge of tears.

"What did he do with it?" Woods finally spoke.

"I don't know." I replied.

"It completely ate away at the foam once....was that from me dropping it?" Sam trailed off.

"Have you ever seen this before?" I quizzed pointing to the snake symbol on the bottle, everyone shook their heads slowly. I gently dug my finger under the gun, gently lifting it. Noticing there was still some liquid built up in the tubing.

"You can see that it was used." I sighed.

"What did the dude do with this?" Woods asked, throwing his hands in the air.

"Well, it's obvious he wanted this, that's why he tried to break in the one time." Sam replied glancing over at Woods.

"It looked like he injected himself." I butted in. Picking up the gun, spinning it around a couple times.

"HOW!? Do you see the size of that needle!?" Woods shouted.

"Look at this." I said, turning the gun towards Woods and Sam, the gun had the snake symbol as well. "Does this mean Shypus or whoever he is, is a part of something?" I thought, quickly shaking it from my thoughts for now.

"This must be what he had with him that night, because I don't see a slot for this." I pointed out.

"Wait, what do you mean?" Sam questioned, perplexed. Watching me try and close the safe with the gun inside.

"He brought this with him and left it here." I explained. "My question is why isn't there blood on it?" I added taking the needle off the gun then held it up.

"He did it right?" Hannah finally spoke.

"Does that mean he has experience?" Woods asked. "Okay, wait, so to recap this safe has been in our ceiling for god how long. It's safe and protected, but then we find it and now." Woods started.

"Now someone broke in, that's creepy." Sam interrupted.

"BUT WHY? Why is it in our ceiling?" Woods screeched.

"Can we get out of this office, maybe go into the conference room." I said grabbing the safe then stood. Quickly we all went into the conference room, Woods shut the blinds as I set the safe carefully on the table.

"First can we talk about how nobody has shown up besides Shypus or whatever his name is. How long has it been since we called the cops? Three days?" I asked, looking at Sam.

"Do you think they don't believe us?" She shrugged.

"Does anyone know any cops?" I asked, looking around the room.

"I do." Hannah said softly.

"Do you think they can check the request?" I asked.

"Probably not, they are all the way out in Burbank." She replied.

Letting out a sigh, I looked back down at the gun. Chewing my bottom lip for a few seconds, "You know what this reminds me of? The janky writing, we found in the car." I confessed.

"Like a druggie." Woods blurted out.

"Also the username was Shypus." Sam informed.

"That means it's connected, because the Key Fob was also Shypus." I agreed while sitting down.

"What does Shypus mean?"Sam requested.

"My guess is, this gun belongs to Shypus whether that means it's his code name or his actual name I am not sure." I commented.

"I can't even believe it's open, this was the furthest thing that I thought would be in this safe. Also, what would you call this?" I asked, holding the gun up.

"Injection gun." Sam and Woods said in unison.

"So it is a gun." I joked.

"Another thing is what is in that!? It burned a hole through our floor. Then someone put it in their body!?" I demanded. I lifted the gun from the safe, examining the slots closer.

"Information we aren't acknowledging is that this slot is bigger than the other two. So did he use one of the smaller ones and the bigger one makes it so it doesn't explode?" I asked, pointing to each slot.

"Probably." Woods spoke.

"It's probably like one chemical is A and the other is B or something like that." Sam said.

"There could be a lot of answers in the drug community. The fact there is a symbol on it, and the fact that it looks well produced. It could be an experimental drug." Woods pointed out.

I sat back in my chair, thinking to myself, trying to connect everything. "This all makes sense now. Do you remember what the previous tenants were before we got the red base?" I asked.

"No." Everyone replied.

"We did a walk through and it was all lab equipment." I announced. "How long ago did we get that unit?" I asked.

"Over a year." Sam confirmed.

"So this has been up in our ceiling for that long, maybe even longer?" Woods asked.

"Most likely, because we first got the blue base three years ago." I said. "This has to belong to that company." I added.

"So does that mean all the bases were connected at some point?" Sam quizzed.

"Yes, because we have put up fake walls to divide the units up." I said.

"What now?" Woods asked when suddenly my phone began ringing.

"Hold on I have to take this." I said quickly standing, then rushed out of the room. What seemed to be five minutes passed before I came back into the room, I could feel myself smiling.

"What?" Sam asked first.

"We got the car." I announced.

Everyone gasped. "Really!?" Sam exclaimed.

"They let me buy the car." I repeated.

"So are they bringing it here? Do we have to go get it? What do we do?" She asked again.

"Now the question is do we want it." I joked.

"Especially since we know that the car is connected to this guy. But if it's in our legal ownership, we can go through it." Sam said.

"How much?" Woods asked curiously.

"Four hundred." I replied.

"Oh, that's a steal." He laughed.

"Well. I paid for a piece of junk." I said

"Is it a piece of junk though?" Hannah asked.

"No, it is, but it has a lot of information in it, I'm guessing." Woods laughed.

"Okay." I said, letting out a sigh, glancing around the table. "We wait." I announced.


	15. ↠One Man's Trash ↞

Tuesday, November 5th

I had mixed emotions about today, half of me was excited to finally get this car and figure out what was inside. But the other half had my stomach knotted with anxiety, what if something illegal was in the car? Did I really want to own this car? Was it better to just leave it on the side of the road and forget about it? Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I let out a soft sigh gathering Woods, CJ, and Hannah.

Before we left I walked up the stairs to Sam’s office. “Have the police called back?” I asked.

Sam shook her head, “No, I haven’t gotten an email or any voicemails. So either they haven’t gotten to us yet, or they just don’t care.” Sam responded.

“Alright, me Hanah and Woods are going to get the car, call if anything happens.” I ordered as I left the office and then walked down the stairs. We all piled into the car and then began driving to the address.

“Who’s going drive your car back?” Woods asked as we were driving.

“Hannah, we will have enough people in the Mountaineer.” I replied.

We drove for what seemed like a half an hour we slowly pulled into the driveway, as we were pulling up we could see the Mountaineer parked outside. We slowly got out of the car, I handed my keys to Hannah.

“After thinking about it, don’t meet us back at the studio. Follow us.” I chuckled.I walked into the auto shop, signing some papers and then grabbed the keys and registration for the car. I handed Woods the temporary license plate, as Woods opened the car he scrunched his nose in disgust.

“There is a strong musk in here.” He said.

“Really? I don’t remember it being that bad.” I commented, walking over to the open door.

“Yeah, but it’s been sitting out in the sun all day too.” Woods argued watching me sticking my head into the car. The overwhelming stench almost knocked me onto my butt, I quickly put my hand over my nose trying to block the smell, I caught a glimpse in the back seat and gasped.

“Let’s do a quick walk around.” I said CJ and I walked to the passenger side of the car.“I have some bad news for you buddy.” I added, slowly opening the back door.

“Oh, come on.” CJ sighed. The back seats were stained with an unknown dark substance, while the floor was covered with chips and other food crumbs.

“Honestly, can we put dirt on the seats? I would rather sit on dirt.” Woods commented, earning a light chuckle from CJ and I.

CJ just lets out a sigh before climbing into the back seat, while Woods and I climbed into the car. “Are you guys wearing sea tbelts?” I asked, glancing back at CJ.

“No.” He replied.

“You got to wear seat belts.” I said shaking my head.

“I would rather die!” Woods screeched.

“We are not that far out, only ten to fifteen minutes just take a breath.” I tried to reason.

“I don’t want to breathe in this car, man.” Woods said as we left the shop.

As we were driving down the road a weird sound started coming from the car, “Bro, it doesn’t sound good.” CJ commented.

I shook my head, “I am not going to go over twenty-five.” I sighed. I continued going down the road, passing the freeway. Woods looked down towards my feet as a sound escaped his mouth.

“Is that bird seed at your feet Matt?” He asked in a defeated tone.

“I can’t look down dude, I am too scared.” I admitted. “Maybe when we get back we can go through it.” I shrugged.

“Or maybe a pole.” Woods said nonchalantly.

After a couple minutes passed when suddenly a loud beep came from the car. I glanced down ‘Door Ajared’ I read off. Woods quickly opened his door slightly and then slammed it shut, and then the beeping stopped. A couple seconds after that the car began overheating, I pulled off to the side of the road groaning loudly.

“We aren’t even that far!” I shouted, trying to stop the car but it wouldn’t park. I fumbled with the gear shift until suddenly the car stalled and died. I popped the hood of the car open, not finding anything wrong, but honestly, I wouldn’t know if something was wrong even if it smacked me in the face. I closed the hood wiping the dust off my hands onto my pants.

“So here is what I am thinking Woods.” I started.

“We call AAA.” Woods interrupted.

“No. We’re not that far from the studio, we’re within pushing distance.” I said waiting a couple seconds.

“Yeah?” Woods nodded.

“Yeah.” I responded.

“Okay, who do you want to call?” Woods asked.

“No, no, we are within pushing distance.” I repeated.

“I’m not pushing this car Matt!” Woods shouted.

“We’re so close, please just try.” I begged. “I mean not pushing it all the way back to the studio. I meant doing a push to start.” I added.

“I don’t think that’s going to work on an SUV….which is an automatic.” Woods said peeking over the car.

“I can’t hear you Woods, thank you for pushing.” I joked, closing the back door, then walked over to the driver seat and then started the car.

“I hate you.” Woods said, slamming his door shut, then disappeared behind the car. Woods let out a small sigh, putting his hands on his hips while shaking his head.

“I could totally quit right now.” He whispered to himself before throwing his hands in the air. Then turned around watching me push the car for a couple seconds before joining.

“See...We’re going….We’re going dude….This is good…..This is good! You ready?” I called.

“Yeah!” Woods called back.

“Okay, we have a turn coming up so it’s kind of complicated…..Keep going...Keep going!” I ordered quickly hopping into the driver seat and then started the car. Woods and Cj quickly hopped into the car as well.

“I honestly don’t know if that did anything, I think it was the fact that we had it off to cool down.” I chuckled.

“How did it start to smell worse in here.” Woods asked.

“Let’s just not run the AC and we should be good right?” I asked.

“Yeah….” Woods and CJ trailed off.

“There’s more flies?” I screeched, swiping my hand in front of my face.

“They got bigger.” Woods commented.

“There’s even more back here.” CJ shouted, waving his hand in front of his face frantically.

“With the amount of old food in this car, there are probably generations of flies man.” Woods replied, holding in a laugh.

“I’m sweating so bad, I have to roll the window down. Just for a second please.” Woods begged, tightening his grip around his seatbelt.

“Okay, Okay.” I said.

Woods tried to roll down his window, but it was locked. Woods let out a low growl as he smashed the button down. “It’s locked!” He shouted.

I bit down on my lip to keep myself from laughing as I unlocked the windows. “I didn’t even realize I pressed that button. I’m sorry.” I said.

Woods quickly rolled his window down, letting out a scream as he took deep breaths of fresh air. “You missed our turn.” CJ commented, earning a low whine from Woods.

“I can get to the studio from here, I’m not turning around.” I laughed.

“No you can’t.” CJ replied.

“I can’t!? What do you mean I can’t!?” I shouted.

After turning around and continuing down the road I glanced over towards the Woods. “Are you alright?” I asked.

“No.” Woods and CJ said in unison.

“It’s just after months of this guy torturing us and now we are in his car and his car is torturing us.” Woods said.

“Have you ever thought we are torturing him by having his car and whatever is inside?” I argued.

“Okay, maybe when we get back. Before we go through the car we get more prepared. We can get some Hazmat suits.” I offered.

“Hazmat suits?” Woods questioned, raising his eyebrow.

“Look at those deadly stains, that very well could be blood by CJ’s elbow.” I said pointing to the stain.

“Yeah, that’s blood.” CJ said, quickly moving his elbow.

“That one looks like Florida.” Woods joked, pointing to another stain on the seat.

After what seemed like forever, we finally made it back to the studio. I parked the car in front of the back exit. Unlocked the car as Woods and CJ scrambled out of the car, gulping down the fresh air.

“You forgot to shut your door.” I said.

“That death machine needs to air out.” Woods replied.

Now that the car was back at the studio, we are one step closer to finding out what is so important in this car, but as I took a few steps back to inspect the car those same thoughts wiggled back into my head. I put my hands on my hips shaking my head slowly, well, there was only one way to find out. We have to go through the car and find all its secrets.


	16. ↠Pegasus ↞

Monday, November 9th

Today was the day, the day we would find out what was so important in that car. Woods, Hannah, Sam and I gathered in my office before going outside.

“Before we go through the car, I have to warn you. Several flies of different sizes came out of the vents. There is a musk in the car only a human being could make.” Woods listed off.

“On the back seats I am almost positive its blood.” I added.

Hannah’s and Sam’s eyes grew wide, as their mouths hung open. “I don’t know if I want to go through it anymore.” Sam whined.

“Let’s just go look at the car.” Hannah sighed standing.

“I kind of want to keep describing it.” Woods joked standing.

Hannah walked out to Kevin’s desk, unfolding one of the suites and then handed it to Sam.

“We have a problem.” Sam called nervously laughing to herself.

“I only got two Hazmat suits, so who are you going to force to go into this car with you?” Sam asked, shaking the suit in her hands.

“I would have gotten more if you told me to.” Hannah commented.

“How about we draw straws?” I suggested walking over towards Kevin’s desk, pulling out two of his incense and then finally handed them to Sam.

“Do you want me to break them in half?” She asked.

“Yeah.” I replied, watching her break them in half. Once she was done, I took the straws into my hands, then jumbled them around for a couple seconds.

“Who wants to go first?” I called, Sam didn't give it any thought she just grabbed one of the straws from my hand. When she opened her hand, she revealed a small straw. While Hannah and Woods pulled longer ones.

“Well, that was easy.” Hannah shrugged as Tanner walked into the lobby.

Tanner glanced at us with a confused expression, “Why do you have white suits?” He quizzed.

“Danger town, we got the car.” I replied.

“Oh, you guys are going to go in it?” Tanner exclaimed.

“You down to stick around and see what we find?” I questioned, slipping on the Hazmat suit.

“I’m down.” Tanner chirped happily. “I’m a little nervous.” He added scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah, well, you should be.” Woods said.

“I’m pretty sure someone died in there.” I commented.

“Have you guys been in it before?” Tanner asked.

“Well the boys have, Hannah and I haven’t.” Sam replied.

“I drove in it, and I will not go back into that car without this.” I said gesturing to the Hazmat suit.

“It’s that gross!?” Tanner shouted.

“It’s that bad.” I replied.

“You guys look like you’re going to go into space.'' Tanner joked sipping his coffee.

Sam and I slipped on our gloves and masks, then Tanner, Sam, and I headed out the back towards the car while Sam and Hannah walked over towards the Orange base. Tanner and Sam both opened their doors and gasped.

“This is disgusting!” Sam screeched.

“I am not going in that!” Tanner shouted, slamming the door quickly.

“Did you think I was lying to you!?” I asked.

“I’m going to walk, I’ll meet you guys over there.” Tanner said, holding up his hands while shaking his head.

After a few minutes of hesitation, Sam reluctantly climbed into the passenger seat of the car.

Then I drove the car to the back of the Orange base.

“Sam, what do you think is the best way to attack this?” I asked.

“I would say back to the front.” Tanner butted in.

“I got this tub just in case we find something we want to look at later.” Hannah said setting down a small gray tub onto the ground.

“Good idea.” I nodded, grabbing the tun from Hannah then walked to the back of the car.

“Can you hold this while we are going through everything, that way nothing gets lost or spills?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Hannah responded while nodding her head. Then took the gray tub from me.

Sam opened the trunk slowly, Sam and I started throwing stuff into the bucket as Hannah held it.

“Tanner, remember when your truck was this dirty?” Woods whispered to Tanner in a joking manner.

“It was never this dirty.” Tanner replied chuckling.

Woods watched Sam and I for a few minutes before speaking, “What are we looking for exactly?” He questioned.

“Anything really, anything that can give us clues to Shypus.” I replied. As Sam pulled out what seemed to be a black wallet, purse from the back of the car, Sam glanced up at me as if she was asking permission before opening it. A long minute passed before Sam slowly opened the case finding what looked to be lockpicking tools. I crawled further into the back of the car, pulling out an old radio. Upon further inspection, I noticed some of the buttons had different types of planes and other symbols.

I quickly threw it into the tub, lifting the Stow N’ Go, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Lifting the rear seats, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary with them either. Besides them being covered with cobwebs.

“Let’s move on to the captain chairs Sam.” I called slowly opening the door.

“You know what I am noticing now? These are seat covers as if the person knew they were going to be messy.” I commented.

“That’s some Dexter type of stuff.” Sam said.

“I’m going to try and take this off just to see what we are dealing with.” I said as I laid the seat down and began to remove the seat cover. As I removed the seat cover, I would feel the tension in the air. I finally unlatched the seat cover and then slipped it off discovering the seats were much cleaner. I bent down, and then reached my hand underneath the seat pulling out fake money. Also a plastic letter c.

“I hate how there are children's items in here.” I commented.

“Do you think this person was a father or mother?” Tanner asked, leaning against the back of the car.

“Or they stole it from a mother or father.” Hannah pointed out.

I walked around to the other side of the car, pulling out a small car mat that was covered with a crimson liquid as well as old chip crumbs.

“Is that coagulated blood?” I screeched pointing to the liquid.

“Hope not.” Tanner answered.

Pushing that thought out my head, I quickly went back to pulling items out of the car.

“That was so scary!” Sam screeched causing me to look up.

“What?” I replied.

“It’s so suspenseful, just shoving my hand into these seat pockets and not knowing what’s in them.” She explained. Sam slowly inserted her hand into the pocket not feeling anything inside, I stuck my hand into the pocket pulling out an old vanilla envelope stained red. I slowly flipped the folder open, finding an old map.

“This is not good.” I sighed, shaking my head.

“What is it coloring book pages?” Sam asked.

“Stop, what is it?” Hannah whined.

“This is pretty much what we didn’t want to find.” I said turning towards her. Opening the folder up again the first two words that popped out at me were NSA, and NAVY.

“Do we want to look at it more when we get inside?” Sam offered.

“Yeah, might as well.” I responded by throwing the folder into the bin. Then Sam and I finally moved to the front seats. As we were searching the front seat, Sam found a wrinkled envelope, she slowly opened the envelope, finding a piece of paper with numbers on it.

“Okay, stop.” Sam said.

“What’s that?” I asked, repositioning my gas mask.

“It says Monday: M-Arrives early. 7:45 AM” Sam read off.

“You’re saying I’m M!?” I shouted.

“W, M,S Arrives at 8 o’clock.” Sam continued reading.

“Is that a schedule!?” Woods asked.

Sam handed me the paper so I could look at it more closely. “I can’t make sense of this.” I said shaking my head.

“Is that all in there?” Hannah asked.

“Can you put it back, and we can look at it when we get inside?” I asked, handing the paper back.

“Yeah, there are more numbers.” Sam said, shoving the paper back inside the envelope. As I was going through the center counsel I found a small piece of paper with ‘863’ and ‘015’ underlined with a red pen. I walked back around the car, watching Sam open the glove department. Pulling out manuals and other papers.

“Can you check under the seat Sam?” I asked. Sam bent down onto her knees, and then began rummaging underneath the seat, a few minutes passed before she pulled out a small red toy car.

“This is so creepy.” Sam trembled.

“It’s a mini Mountaineer.” Hannah joked, trying to break the tension.

“Alright, I think we have successfully gone through every nook and cranny of this car. I have to get to a Dope or Nope shoot in like fifteen minutes, so tomorrow you think would be a good time to sit down and go through everything?” I asked.

“Yeah, like I knew we would find some creepy things in the car, but I never imagined this.” Sam said looking at me.

“Same, there are some things in there that we need answers to.” I replied.

Morning came quicker than I thought it would, my morning went by like a blur due to rushing to the office. We bought the car for answers and yesterday we weren't able to get them, but today we at least hopefully come to some conclusion. Woods set up a table in the back room of the studio, I grabbed my Mega chair at the end of the table, while Woods and Sam grabbed their chairs. We all pulled on our gloves, as Hannah set the gray tub onto the table before sitting down.

Letting out a sigh, I pulled the umbrella out from the bin. “Should we open it? There could be something inside.” I asked.

“It’s bad luck to open an umbrella inside.” Sam argued.

“It’s also bad luck to go through clues of a possible murder!” I shouted. “Plus, you’re opening it so you’ll get all the bad luck.” I added.

“I’ll be fine.” Sam replied slowly, opening the umbrella.

“I don’t think this is anything, besides a crusty umbrella.” I commented. As Sam closed the umbrella and then passed it down to Woods. We continued through the different items until we came to the radio.

“I’m kind of scared of that.” Woods whispered.

“It says whistler radio with four-way radio.” I read off.

“Is that a police scanner then?” Woods asked.

“Most likely.” I shrugged.

“This is probably a stupid question, but what does a police scanner do?” Sam asked.

“It scans Police radio waves.” I explained.

“So they can hear whatever they call in and stuff?” Sam questioned.

“Basically.” I said, pulling out the manuals next. Flipping through the pages I noticed some of the pages had red arrows pointing to a part of the car while others were dogged eared. In the middle of the book were ripped out pages that didn’t belong to the manual, a few of the smaller papers were pictures of the car seats. While the larger paper was a picture of the car’s engine with a red arrow pointing to a small section inside. Everyone grew silent as I pulled out the envelope full of papers.

I pulled all the papers from the envelope, one one the napkins had a bunch of numbers, but they were scratched out with black pen. On the back of the napkin there was more writing. One thing that struck out to me was the word ‘tesla’ and the fact it was circled.

“Someone is tracking me.” I said, when a shiver ran down my spine. “The question is why.” I added.

Putting the napkin aside, I pulled out the paper from earlier. Reading it a bit, “Oh wait, there is a W, H, and S with a bunch of times as well.” I said putting a hand over my mouth. On the side next to the timetable the word Fob was circled a couple times.

“So maybe the first Fob he tried was stolen.” I said.

“This is really unsettling.” Sam sighed, leaning back in her chair as I pulled out some ripped up sticky notes.

“Is there a key 015?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Sam said, thinking to herself for a few seconds.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

‘Do you want me to go get the box of keys?” Sam asked, pointing up to her office.

“Yes.” I replied quickly.

Sam quickly stood up, disappearing up the stairs. Then reappearing a couple minutes later with the box of keys in hand. Sam set the box onto the table, as I pulled out the vanilla folder. Slowly flipping it open, I pulled out an old map of the base.

“Wait, did they make a map of the base?” Sam asked.

“No. These are blueprints of the inside of the base. We don’t even have these, we asked the original landowner and they said it doesn’t exist because it changes with each tenant.” I explained. In the middle of the map was the word ‘Pegasus.’

“What is Pegasus?” I asked.

“A Pegasus is a horse that flies.” Sam and Woods explained. “But it’s often used as a code name.” Woods added.

“This is a little more suspicious, but I can't figure out where it goes.” Sam said, handing me the smaller paper, I linked up the two papers together, when the thought hit me. “That's mega desk...Where we found the safe!” I shouted, throwing the paper onto the desk.

“So Pegasus is what the safe was called?” Sam questioned raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged reading an old note, but the note was too ripped up to understand. I then pulled out some old articles about some talk about a project of mind control. As I read off the article everyone grew quiet again, as Sam’s mouth fell open.

“What!?” Sam screeched.

“Is that real!?” Woods shouted.

“I have no idea, can we look it up?” I asked, glancing up at Sam, who immediately pulled out her phone then began searching. Her eyes widened as she read the small article about Joseph.

“So that is real!.” Sam confirmed, pointing to the paper. “This makes me even more uneasy about whatever was in that safe.” She added as she continued reading the article.

“Because this makes it obvious that he wanted to inject himself?” Sam asked.

“I am not sure.” I replied. “This doesn’t look the same as what was in the safe, but it could be connected.” I added.


	17. ↠Strike 1↞

Saturday, November 14th

It seemed to happen whenever I was planning on working from home, I would get a voicemail from someone begging me to come into the office. While I was at a red light I decided I would check the voicemail I got from Woods.

"Matt, please tell me you're on your way. Woods pleaded. "I'm here and well, the car looks like it got totaled. It honestly looks like someone took a bat to it. You just got to get here quick man, I think we are over our heads with this." Woods explained.

As I pulled into the studio I drove to the back of the red base, pulling out my phone and then voicemail everyone to meet me at the car. When I drove closer to the car everything seemed fine at first, until I noticed something was handing off the back. I continued forward until I saw the driver's side of the car. The window was busted as well and the words 'Strike 1' was spray painted on the doors. I parked a couple spaces away from the car, slowly getting out.

"Now I understand what Woods meant by over our heads, this is not good." I sighed.

Woods, Cj, Hannah, and Sam came out of the back door, "Did you bust the side mirror?" She asked.

"I didn't do anything to it, come look." I replied walking towards the car.

Sam and Hannah's eyes widened, as their mouths fell open. "That's a threat." Woods commented.

"Okay, hold on. Every time someone's car window is broken I think it's a prank." Sam said, walking towards the back of the car.

"Oh my god." She gasped.

"What?" I replied, glancing at the back, "Okay, that's not a prank." I said. The back window was busted as well, black glass was scattered across the ground.

"Who would do this!?" I shouted.

Sam chuckled lightly, "I don't think we have to ask who would do this anymore." She said.

"Why wouldn't someone hot-wire the car and steal it? Why do all this?" Hannah asked.

"Strike 1?" Sam read off the car shuddering.

"If I'm being honest, I am glad this is strike one, because I feel like strike one would have happened a long time ago. So maybe this guy is more patient than we think." I commented, laughing nervously to myself, while running a hand down my face.

"Sam, do you have the keys?" I asked, Sam pulled her bag over her shoulder. Pulling the keys from her bag and then handed them to me. Before I put the keys inside the lock I tried to open the door finding it was already opened. I turned the car on, then rolled down the window watching the huge shards of glass fall onto the ground. As well as loud crunching coming from inside the window.

"Yeah, this isn't a prank. You hear all the glass falling inside?" I asked, glancing at the small group.

"This has to be the same person who broke in, Shypus, he wanted to leave us a message. But why?" Sam asked, throwing her arms out to the side.

"He wanted the car, but used it to send us a message." Woods said.

"But why come back?" I asked.

"Because he's mad." Woods replied.

"Good thing we got all the clues out of the car." Sam sighed, kicking some glass to the side.

"A normal person would give up." I commented, laughing slightly.

"Yeah, but like you said when we were looking at the clues, even if we stop looking into this Shypus is stalking you and I feel like this would still happen to us." Woods pointed out.

A couple minutes passed before Sam spoke again. "What do we do? Check cameras?" Sam quizzed letting out a sigh.

"Yeah, we can do that. I feel like the camera on the right corner might have caught something." I replied.

"He literally did all this mess, to say that." Woods laughed while leaning against the fence.

"Woods can you take pictures before anything changes?" I asked Woods as I handed him my phone. "With this, now they have to take us seriously." Woods added.

"Yeah, or they don't because we're youtubers." I commented sarcastically while raising my hands in the air. "There has to be something else." I said again.

"What do you mean?" Sam questioned.

"Think about it, why come back just to send us a message. I mean he already broke in, he got what he wanted so why?" I explained.

"Do you think maybe he was looking for the stuff we found in the car?" Sam asked.

"But we didn't take anything of value." I replied.

"I know, maybe he was coming back for those. Maybe he wanted those." Sam shrugged.

"Maybe we're just getting in his way." Woods butted in.

"No, No, Here is what I think. Something has to still be in there more important than those documents. I think breaking the car is like an act." I started to explain.

"Like a tantrum?" Woods interrupted.

"No, for instance. He busted open this window, because he wants to get inside the car. Because there is still something in there, and then make it look like it was just a vandalized act." I continued.

"So we don't look inside the car?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know." I shrugged.

"Don't you think Shypus would have written something more thuggish than this? I mean this seems personalized to me." Woods pointed out.

"You are right, this is personalized. But that doesn't make sense why we would never assume it wasn't Shypus? No matter what it looked like." I said, gesturing to the car.

"What is strike one, what did we do?" Hannah asked nervously.

"We have the car." Sam, Woods and I said in unison.

"I think we should go back inside and check the papers we found, I think those x's mean something. Because I think there is still something inside the car" I said.

"Unless he already got what he was looking for, and made it look like this to scare us." Sam said, putting her hands in her pockets.

We walked back into the studio, pulling out the manual. I flipped through the book until I found the page I was looking for. There was a small black x on one of the seats behind the driver's seat.

"Okay, so this could mean one of two things. One that something is there, or x marks the spot." I said. I pulled out the smaller pieces of paper, flipping through them until I found the assembly of the seats.

"I think these two things go together, making me think it's a x marks the spot type of deal." Sam said.

"Have we not thought for a moment, maybe he wasn't trying to get something instead of planting something." I asked.

" You mean something discriminating?" Sam asked. "That makes me less eager to go back to the car." She added.

"Yeah, but since he doesn't have the information it would make it ten times harder for him." I said gesturing at the papers laying on the table. 

"Hence why he would need the papers." She said.

"I don't know, maybe. I say I put the Hazmat suit back on and use this diagram to look through the car one more time just to be sure." I ordered. Everyone nodded their heads slowly, I grabbed the Hazmat suit, then slipped it on quickly. Before heading back to the car.

"Where would you like to start?" Sam asked.

"Did anyone check the driver's seat?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so. I know I checked the passenger seat though." She replied.

"Then I guess I will start there." I said while shrugging my shoulders. Sam slowly opened the driver's door for me, then moved out of the way. I bent down, slowly sticking my hand underneath the seat.

"There's something wedged under there." I said, tugging on the item a couple times. After three or four times the item came unstuck, revealing what looked to be binoculars.

"Oh, creepy!" Hannah screamed.

"Is this really that surprising?" I asked, smiling to myself.

"No, but it's still creepy." Sam whined.

"I have been waiting for us to find something like this to be honest." Hannah whispered to herself.

"Those are night vision binoculars." Woods informed.

"Do we have a bucket or something?" I asked.

"I can hold them." Sam said reluctantly.

I closed the driver's door, then opened the back door. Moving to the seat sitting behind the driver's seat. "Can I have the diagram?" I asked, holding out my hand. Sam handed me the small stack of papers, as I looked at the pages I noticed the number eight and ten were circled in black pen.

"These numbers are circled." I pointed out.

"What does that mean?" Sam asked.

"I think that's the backrest of the seat." I replied.

"Is that why there are seat covers?" Hannah quizzed.

"Possibly." I responded while putting the seat down. I went around to the other side of the car, doing the same for that seat, not feeling anything.

"I don't feel anything." I shouted.

"Maybe...He got it." Woods said.

I crawled over to the other seat, then began pushing on the seat. I didn't feel anything inside the cushion so I moved onto the back of the seat feeling something hard. "There is something in here." I said, looking up at Sam.

"You're kidding." She sighed.

"What does it feel like? Is it hard?" Hannah asked.

"Is it the seat?" Woods shouted out as well.

"It feels like it shouldn't belong." I sighed, shaking my head.


	18. ↠Blank Pages↞

Tuesday, November 16th

I couldn't get the thought of something being in that seat out of my head. I had to know what was inside, it could give us a better understanding of why Syphus is so keen on Hi5. Or maybe even a clue to who he is, and what he's after.

"Are we ready to find out what's inside?" I asked Hannah and Woods.

Woods walked over towards the car, flinging the car door open. I slipped on the hazmat suit once more, positioning the mask before opening the car door. I really hoped this was the last time I had to slip this suit on, after taking a deep breath I grabbed the small pocket knife from Woods before approaching the car slowly. I slowly pushed the blade into the seat. The sounds of tearing echoed through the car giving off a feeling of uneasiness, as I continued cutting down the middle of the seat. After a couple tears with the knife I used my hands to pull the exposed fabric apart to reveal the foam, and then started pulling the foam from the seat.

"I'm not sure if it is anything, but it feels like something." I commented, sticking my hand further into the seat. My fingers brushed up against the item, I pushed my hand further into the seat until I could grab the item and then began pulling. Until what looked to be a black leather journal came from out of the seat.

"Interesting." Hannah blurted out.

"Is that a journal?" Sam questioned.

"How did he even place it in there?" Hannah asked.

"I don't know." I replied.

"What's in it? I want to know what's in it!" Sam hollered.

I climbed out of the car, handed Hannah the journal then began stripping.

Woods snapped the journal up from Hannah's hands quickly. "Why is this in a seat cushion?" He demanded.

Slamming the door shut, I wiped the sweat beading down either side of my head. "The case just gets more unsettling." Hannah sighed.

"We should take it inside and look at it." Sam suggested.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." I replied.

Once inside Megadesk, I examined the journal more closely, noticing there was a small button or scanner keeping the journal locked. I placed my thumb on the small button seeing a small light lit up, "It's a fingerprint scanner." I concluded.

"How does it still have battery life?" Woods laughed.

"I don't know." I replied.

"Did you get locked out?" Hannah whispered.

"Yeah, are we making the same mistake we did with the safe and got locked out?" Sam said.

"The question is, do we even want to try with this? Because we can just cut it open." I quizzed.

"I say just cut it open, I can take a Dremel to the spine and open it that way." Woods suggested.

"I like that idea, let's go do that." I said, pushing out my chair then stood. We all headed to the orange base, Woods tossed the journal onto the counter while he got all his supplies ready. Once he got everything he needed, he put on protective goggles.

"Are we mentally prepared to see what's inside the journal?" Hannah asked, folding her hands over her chest.

"Are we ever?" Woods replied, smirking.

Woods finally began cutting the spine of the book. It only took a couple seconds for the spine to be cut. Woods backed away from the table, letting me grab the book. I slowly opened the book, when disappointment washed over me. The pages were empty. I let out a defeated sigh, flipping through the pages spastically hoping if I flipped them enough something would appear on them. After a couple times, I let the book fall back onto the counter with a soft thud.

"IT'S A BLANK JOURNAL!?" Sam shouted.

I took a couple breaths before picking the journal back up, I pulled on the pages feeling the small give, as they fell from the journal's shell. "It's a self insert." I commented. Placing the pages onto the counter, then freezing. There it was, the notorious snake symbol. It was etched on the back of the journal, how could it be here too!?

"It's the symbol!" Sam screeched.

"It keeps showing up." I said below a whisper.

"That was on the vials too, right?" Hannah asked.

"Yes, so this is connected to Shypus. The symbol must mean something. But the pages are blank." I responded, nodding my head.

After everyone headed home, I decided to check Reddit for some answers. After seeing many posts about using a black light, I let out a sigh, pushed out my chair and then grabbed the journal. As I was grabbing the journal, I remembered seeing a couple posts about the folds in the back of the journal. Part of me wondered if there was something stashed inside, I slowly stuck my fingers into the slot not feeling anything inside, I grabbed my blacklight flashlight and then shone it on the first page revealing no writing. I chewed my lower lip for a minute before through the pages while shining the blacklight. Still nothing.

"Just as I thought." I muttered to myself, half of me knew there was nothing but a little part of me wished there was just to get some sort of clue. I decided to scroll through Reddit for a couple more minutes, upvoting fanart and theories when one post caught my attention. My breath got caught in my throat, I re-read the title a couple times trying to understand. 'They are also infrared camera and video.'

"Oh my god they record." I whispered to myself, my heart was beating hard against my chest. I took a shuddered breath, I put my head into my hands. This just unearthed a ton of more questions that were whirling around inside my brain. Why was Syphus watching us? Do the binoculars actually have an SD card? Was the car actually Shypus's or did he just steal it? Did the journal actually belong to him? Or was it stashed inside the seat for another purpose? Guess I will never know. At least for today.


	19. ↠SideKick↞

Tuesday, November 24th

Today was a relaxing day at the studio, we haven't had anything weird happen for a while. So I decided I would sit down and finally open some fan mail the viewer's had sent. "Will you go get the mail?" I asked Sam.

"Sure." She chirped, hopping out from her chair, then disappeared into the lobby. A few minutes later, Sam came back into the room with a few envelopes, packages and a large brown box. The brown box caught my attention right away, I wanted to open it first but decided not to. Save the best for last. We sat down on the couch next to the kitchen, opening some of the letters, reading them aloud, as well as looking at the fanart some of the viewer's made. A large smile formed on my face as I read some of the letters aloud, Ten minutes passed until we moved onto the packages, glancing at the large brown box. My curiosity was gnawing my brain to find out what was inside the large brown box. I exhaled a couple times before moving onto the first package.

"This one is from Matthew from....VA?" I read off.

"Virginia" Sam whispered.

"Virginia, I knew that." I replied with a laugh.

"I've been to forty states." CJ mocked, earning a round of laughter from everyone.

After opening all the smaller packages we finally got to the larger box. I gently set it on the table, trying to find an address, but found that the address was actually ours.

"That doesn't make any sense, it's to and from our studio." Sam read carefully.

"Is this not fan mail?" I asked.

"It was in the lobby with the other mail." Sam answered.

"I wonder if this is something Hannah ordered, because he's redecorating the conference room." I pointed out.

"But, wouldn't it say Amazon or something like that?" Sam questioned.

"It sounds heavy, let's just open it!" Woods shouted as I went to get up to grab a pair of scissors. I sat down on the couch, as I opened the box I noticed the box was filled with packing peanuts. I shifted through the peanuts, finding at the bottom of the box was a rectangular item wrapped with brown packing paper. I took the object out of the box and then threw the box onto the ground. Setting the rectangular package onto the table I brushed off the white peanuts onto the ground.

I opened one side of the package and then gently let the item slide onto the table, revealing another safe. "No, stop." Sam said, trying to keep herself from laughing.

Woods on the other hand threw himself backwards, laughing loudly. I stood up quickly walking into the kitchen while shaking my head.

"Someone sent us...no because it came from here." Sam said.

"Did one of you buy this as a gag?" I asked, holding out my hands.

"No." Both Sam and Woods responded in unison.

"Honestly, this wasn't us. If it was, it would have said Amazon or something and been shipped with a name." Sam explained. "But, this was sent to us from our address." She added.

"I don't like this." I said, shaking my hands in front of me. "I was having a nice week." I began.

"It's a prank." Woods concluded.

"It has to be." I agreed, folding my arms over my chest. "It was one of you, or you CJ." I glanced at each of them. 

Woods began moving the safe to get a better look, when Sam grabbed his wrist. "I wouldn't touch that, the last safe, we touched almost disintegrated." Sam said.

Sam noticed Tanner was in the kitchen, "Tanner did you send a safe to the studio?" Sam asked. Tanner turned to Sam with a confused look.

"Is this for an Overkill video?" I asked this time, pointing down to the safe. Tanner shook his head, closing the fridge, then walked into the room.

"Is what for what?" Tanner asked.

"Did you buy this?" I asked again.

"No, why would I buy this?" He asked.

"This was sent from the studio to us." I explained, causing Tanner to throw back his head and laugh.

"That is something someone here would do, you all are sus." He replied, shaking his head while leaving the room.

"If this was an Amazon, it would be in a box saying that, are there keys or anything?" I asked.

Sam picked up the brown packaging, then dug through the box for a couple minutes before shaking her head. "It has to be someone from here." She concluded.

"Well, wait, what's stopping someone from using someone's address to send it to them?" I questioned. "Let's assume for a second that it's not a prank. Why? Why would someone send us a safe?" I said.

"One of our fans is playing a prank on us." Sam shrugged.

"Okay, but how did it get here if it was sent from here?" Woods asked.

"I don't know, it was in the lobby so I feel like someone had to deliver it." She replied.

"Do you want to try the keys?" I asked as Sam laughed.

"I mean, sure." Sam replied, standing, then went upstairs.

"Why would someone send us a key without a key? Do they just want us to pry it open? This one looked less secure. But the question is do we want to open it?" I asked Woods. A few seconds later, Sam reappeared with the box of keys. Sam opened the box of keys and started handing me them one by one, none of them fit the lock to the safe. Out of frustration, I tipped the box over and then began digging through the packing peanuts, until I found a small square envelope.

I set the paper onto the table, then rushed to find some gloves, once I found some I snapped them on quickly. Then slowly opened the small envelope, inside was a small piece of paper.

_**'You should already have the key' -D** _

"Do we know anybody that starts with a D?" Sam asked, confused

"We've been through each of these keys." Woods said, gesturing to the red box.

"No, we haven't, there is one last key we haven't tried." I informed.

"What are you talking about?" Sam questioned.

"The TS5 Key." I replied.


	20. ↞Emulation↠

Thursday, November 26th

“We need to put these in the vault.” I ordered. “Will you put them there Sam?” I asked.

“I didn’t think it was a security threat, but yeah.” She replied with a shrug.

I turned my attention away from Sam noticing Pat was getting ready to leave. “Pat!” I called.

Pat stopped in his tracks slowly turning towards me, “What?” He replied.

“Did you send me a safe?” I asked.

Pat shook his head, as he walked closer towards me. “I don’t understand the question, what are you asking me?” Pat asked.

“Does this look familiar? Is this where you hid the Go-Pros?” Woods taunted in a joking manor.

“I swear if one of you planted this just to see my reaction I will lose it.” Pat replied with a smile.

“I didn’t plant this, this was sent from here.” I explained.

“Like a fan?” He asked.

“No, this was sent to the studio in a box with our address.” Sam explained again.

“Oh, that’s weird. No, I didn’t order this. I hate sending stuff in the mail.” Patrick admitted. I pushed past Patrick and walked further into the lobby.

“Bailey, do you know if Kevin ordered a safe?” I asked while lending against her desk.

“No.” Bailey replied. “How I know is because I order everything for Kevin.” She added.

“Fair enough.” I shrugged, “Let’s go put everything in the vault.” I said walking up the stairs. After we set the red box and the safe inside, we closed the vault back up and headed back into my old office. After a half and hour of searching we came up empty handed.

“Is it in your car?” Sam suggested.

“No, I have like three things in my car.” I replied. “It’s not in MegaDesk because you just moved in there.” I added.

“What was it in again?” Woods asked.

“The TS5 Key was in the mini safe which was in the filing cabinet, but we aren’t even looking for that right now.” Sam explained. “Now that I am thinking about it, we didn’t put the key back inside the mini safe did we?” She questioned.

“Let’s try unit 14.” I sighed, leaving the office. As we were leaving I saw Patrick again. “Do you have any recollection where the TS5 key went?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know, because you kicked me out of the warehouse that day.” Patrick said.

“I kicked you out of the warehouse that day!?” I asked puzzled.

“Yeah.” Patrick responded with a small laugh. “To answer your question, no I don’t know.” Patrick added as I left.

When we got inside Unit fourteen, I walked to the back warehouse, when I walked through the door a wave of regret washed over me. Lining the wall where the old BU lego building blocks, while the floor was littered with a mixture of old BU and other channel items. After a few minutes, I let out a frustrated sigh.

“Didn’t you say you saw Izzy throwing stuff out? Was that this week?” I questioned CJ.

“It was this week, and it was from this pile.” CJ Confirmed.

“For some reason, all the evidence was in there before we built the safe.” I said.

“They cleared out this whole room back here and moved everything in this small storage area.” CJ explained leading me to the room.

I examined the clear totes for a couple minutes before I started taking them off the shelves and started digging through them.

“Here is what I am worried about, that it was this week and it accidentally got thrown away.” I stated.

“So, we are going to go check the dumpster?” Sam asked her voice laced with worry.

“Yeah.” I responded as she sighed and started heading towards the back door. As we were walking out of the building I noticed a small white desk pushed up against the wall.

“You said this desk has been out here Sam?” I asked walking towards it.

“Yeah, for three days.” She replied.

I walked over towards the desk, and then dropped kicked it, only forming a small hole in the middle. I stood there for a couple minutes before trying again, this time kicking it in half.

“That was a normie desk, never bring a normie desk to Hi5 again.” I said at CJ in my Mega voice while everyone laughed.

While Sam and I were breaking the already broken desk Woods checked the dumpster finding it empty.

“The trash guys must have come.” Woods called as I checked the other dumpster a couple feet away.

“What else was in my office?” I asked.

“You’re desk.” Woods answered.

“Oh yeah, that tiny desk you always complained about.” Sam gasped.

“That’s in the vault right now!” I shouted.

“We didn’t check….” Woods trailed off.

We all walked back inside the blue base towards the vault, once open I sat down at the desk and began going through the drawers. I searched for what seemed like five minutes before I found the TS5 key, tucked in the back of the drawer. I turned my chair, grabbed the safe, turned back around, and then finally set the safe down onto the desk. I exhaled softly as I gently stuck the key inside the lock.

“Before I turn this key, if it turns, can we make a mental note that I have had this key, for years?” I asked looking at Sam and then Woods.

“Yeah….” Sam trailed off, putting her hands on her hips.

“So, this safe has to have existed for years.” I said pointing at the safe.

“Sent to us a month ago.” Woods said below a whisper.

I barely touched the key before quickly letting go. I glanced down at the safe for a brief second, a nervous smile forming on my face. “I want it not to work.” I admitted.

“It has…” Sam started speaking, but quickly stopped herself. I slowly turned the key, feeling the lock turn inside the safe.

“What if I open this and it leaks gas or whatever.” I asked Woods.

“Then!.” He shouted, spinning around and opened the vault door.

“Thank you…” I muttered, glancing back down at the safe. Exhaling one last time I opened the safe revealing the safe was padded with black foam. In the middle of the safe was what I assumed to be a computer chip.

“What is that?” Sam questioned.

“I have no idea.” I replied.

“I don't know why, but my first thought was a tracking device.” Sam guessed.

“No.” I replied.

“Some sort of motherboard?” Woods guessed next.

“It looks like a computer part.” I concluded.

“That’s a screen on it, right?” Woods asked.

“Yeah, that is a mini screen on it for sure.” I replied gently gliding my finger across it.

“So not a prank.” Woods said, trying to break the tension.

“Yeah, no, because the TS5 key worked and they couldn’t have sent us a safe.” Sam tried to piece together.

“Yeah, no, the safe key would have to work. Years ago….” Woods replied trailing off.

“So this has existed for years.” I interjected. “As if someone has been waiting? To send this to us?” I asked.

“Until they saw us going down this….path?” Sam questioned as well.

“That makes no sense.” I said. “I’m so thrown off.” I added, rubbing my hands over my face.

“This was the second key we found.” I said, taking, the key out and then waved it in the air a couple times.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what to think.” Woods admitted shrugging.

“I don’t even know what this is!” I shouted.

“Also 863 unlocked that key.” Sam pointed out.

“You should already have the key, do you think this note from D meant the TS5 key?” I asked, picking up the note and reading it over a couple times.

“It has to be.” Both Sam and Woods said.

“Or is it this!?” I asked again, pointed towards whatever was inside the safe. “Do we need a key for this?” I said.

“Can you turn it on?” Woods asked.

I gently picked the chip from the safe, “It’s a circuit board.” I confirmed. After messing with the buttons for a few seconds, I noticed there was a piece missing from the side.

“What about this?” Woods asked, pointing towards the small insert slot.

“That seems to be a SIM Card.” I replied.

“Okay, so it needs power and a SIM card.” Sam gathered, rubbing her forehead.

“Can I just recap what happened today?” Woods asked.

“Sure.” I answered.

“So we got a package, it was sent to us a month ago from where we are right now. It just came with that note from D and a lockbox with no key, but we did have the key. We opened it up and there is a circuit board inside. I can’t find a normal part of this.” Woods recapped.


	21. ↠Bird Watching↞

Monday, November 30th

I idly stared at the computer screen for a long minute, “Sam, CJ, Hannah, Woods? Can you come in here for a minute?” I called. Couple seconds passed before the small group appeared in the doorway, then slowly entered the room cautiously. “Guys look.” I said, pointing to the computer screen. 

“Oh they record.” Sam gasped. Sam took a second to think about what she said, then her nose scrunched up in disgust. “Ew, that’s gross and creepy on so many levels.” She added. 

“This is a picture that a viewer sent me, they said they own the same binoculars.” I said. 

“That doesn’t make me feel good.”Sam whined. 

“I don’t want to see what’s on there at all.” Woods whispered, shaking his head. 

“We still have them, yes?” I asked, turning towards Woods.

“Oh, we don’t want to look at that!” Sam screeched. “We don’t know what type of footage is on that.” She added. 

“I know Woods is with me on the idea.” I said smiling. 

“Yeah, let’s go get those binoculars.” Woods agreed. 

“I knew it!” I shouted hopping onto my feet. 

“Really!?” Sam screeched, throwing her arms to the side. 

“I knew you were as curious as me.” I said walking out of the office. 

“Are they in the vault?” I asked. 

“Yeah.” Woods nodded. Woods and I jogged up the stairs to the vault, I opened the vault, grabbed the binoculars and then finally closed it. The girls joined us a couple minutes after.

“I don’t know how we didn’t see this before, there is a power button right here on the top.” I chuckled nervously pointing towards the button. “There’s no record button.” I added. 

“There’s a screen dude.” Woods pointed out tapping on the glass. 

“That’s a screen!? I thought that’s what you see out of.” I admitted. “Oh you look through the screen!” I exclaimed. After fiddling with the binoculars for a minute or two, I tried to take a picture but the message ‘error’ kept popping up. Letting out a soft sigh, I looked around for a SD port once I found one I slowly opened it discovering it did have a SD card. 

“I don’t want to look.” Sam said, waving her hands in front of her. 

“Okay, then go into your office, and I will get you when we are done.” I shrugged. 

“This just got exciting though!” Hannah chirped, hopping up and down. 

“This actually might be terrifying.” I admitted keeping my eyes down on the binoculars. “We need a SD Card reader.” I commented walking back down the stairs. Woods brushed past me at the bottom of the stairs and then disappeared inside the equipment room. 

“Do we really want to put this on one of our computers?” Sam asked following us down. 

“That’s actually a really good point.” I said waving my finger at her. Woods appeared behind me a moment after, holding out the reader. 

“What’s going on?” He asked glancing from Sam and then I. 

“Sam brought up a good point about this SD Card, what if it doesn’t actually have stuff on it?” I asked. “I am appreciating it will have videos and stuff on it, but if there is something else?” I added. 

“Can it do that?” Woods questioned. 

“I have no idea, I’m not a hacker.” I replied. 

“We have like twenty computers, let’s just put it on one.” Woods argued. 

“All the PC’s are in the orange base.” CJ pointed out. 

“That’s a good point, those are cheap.” I gasped smiling widely. We all rushed over towards the orange base, Woods walked towards the closet pulling the door open quickly. Then disappeared inside, before popping back out with a computer in arms. Only to find the computer he chose had to have a special charger. 

“I say we just go use MegaDesk, I can disconnect it from our network.” I sighed closing the laptop. 

“Are you worried it’s going to destroy the computer or, like, gaining access to all your files?” Woods asked. 

“I have no idea, I don’t know what’s even possible. I am sure there is a lot possible, worst to best case scenario It does something to my computer, but then that’s an easy fix. Especially since it doesn't have a WIFI chip inside yet. I can just disconnect it from our network.” I explained. 

We all walked back to MegaDesk, I quickly got to work on unplugging it. “We’re offline.” Woods joked. 

“Off the grid.” Hannah joined in. 

I chuckled as I plugged in the card reader, then inserted the SD card inside. Only to find out MegaDesk couldn’t process the older card, which meant I had to use one of my laptops. Letting out a groan, I picked up my laptop from behind me and plugged in the reader, a couple seconds later a window popped up asking for a password. 

“Stop.” Sam whispered. 

“Password?” Woods commented perplexed. 

“It’s password protected.” I replied. 

“I mean that feels right.” Sam said. 

“I didn’t even know you could password protect a SD card.” Woods said. 

“I didn’t either.” I responded. 

“WHY WOULD YOU PUT A PASSWORD ON A SD CARD!?” Sam groaned, running a hand through her hair. 

“For obvious reasons.” Hannah answered. 

“What would be on a SD card, that needs to be protected?”Sam argued. 

“Should we guess a password and hope it works?” Hannah asked. 

“I don’t know, “ I replied. 

“Try Syphus .” Hannah blurted out. 

“Or 863!” Sam shouted. 

I typed both passwords, earning a window to pop up saying ‘incorrect password.’ rubbing my hands together, I exhaled softly. “Why don’t we go upstairs to the vault and look at some of the evidence to see if there is a password there?” I suggested. as everyone nodded their heads. 

As we got to the vault, I sat down at the brown desk, sifting through papers. We tried different passwords, the more I tried the more frustrated I had become. The answer had to be here, It had to. 

“We’re so stupid, why not try the password in the car!?” I exclaimed. 

“Do you still have it!?” Sam screeched. 

“I took a picture of it.” I replied, pulling out my phone. When I found the picture I handed my phone to Sam, as she read off the password I typed it into the computer then pressed enter, letting out a defeated sigh when it didn’t work. 

“I was so confident!” I shouted, putting my fists in the air. I picked up the dirtied vanilla envelope and flipped through the pages, shrugging I typed ‘Pegasus’ into the computer earning a soft ping from the computer giving me access to the computer. Everyone gasped as I held my hands up in the air, chuckling to myself silently. 

“I honestly didn’t think that would work.” I admitted. 

“What was the password?” Sam asked. 

“Pegasus.” I replied. “This is getting really creepy.” I added putting a hand over my mouth while leaning back in my chair. 

“Are those all the videos?” Woods asked. 

“I think so, the question is when are these videos?” I shot back. “This one said  **_January 1st 2019._ ** ” I read off. 

“WHAT!?” Sam, Woods, and Hannah said in unison. 

“That was two years ago.” I pointed out. “My thing is what if this is unrelated to us at all, and I am about to see something freaky.” I said putting my hands up. 

“I would rather see that, then something about Hi5.” Woods insisted. 

“I don't think I would.” I argued. 

“Really?” Woods questioned. 

“I honestly don’t know dude.” I said, rubbing my forehead, “Let’s get out of this hot room.” I demanded standing from the chair. We all gathered inside the conference room, Woods slowly closed the door while Hannah and Sam lowered the blinds. I set the computer down onto the table as I pulled the projector screen down, and then linked the computer to it. I clicked the first file, it took a second for the file to start. It was in front of Hi5 studios, you could see Sam drinking her starbucks while walking to her car not noticing she was being watched from afar. 

“That’s me.” Sam commented, her mouth agape. 

“Oh my gosh.” I whispered, putting my hands over my mouth. 

“That’s totally me leaving work.” Sam commented, her voice trembling almost seeming on the verge of tears. 

“The dates on the files aren’t accurate.” I said, noticing the time stamp on the bottom of the screen. 

“That was from right across the street.” Sam bellowed pointing out the window. 

“Depending on how much these zoom in.” I said. “That was file 0.” I read off clicking on the next file. This one was different, the colors were different I am guessing the person flipped on infrared by accident. The person taking the video flipped back to normal settings, recording Sam get into her car and then drive out of the parking lot. Nobody said anything, as I flipped to the next video. 

We clicked the third video, discovering the video had my car in frame, the videos seemed to be centered around Sam at the moment, the video looked to be in the bushes across the parking lot recording Sam entering the studio. “That’s my car.” I said. 

“Oh my gosh that seems to be right outside in the bushes.” Hannah gasped. 

“How did nobody see him, I guess he was hiding in the bushes, but I feel like someone would see another person crouching in the bushes.” Sam questioned. 

“Like Matt said, he could have been across the street zoomed in, this is messed up.” Woods replied as I clicked the next video. To our surprise, it was yet another Sam video. 

“That was only three clips out of twenty.” I said. 

“If the schedule tells us anything, it is that he wasn’t just watching me. Syphus was watching all of us.” Sam determined. 

I tried to click on another, but the video wouldn’t play. I noticed the video was slightly longer than the others leading me to believe the footage was corrupted. “I might be able to fix this one.” I commented. 

“Okay, how long will that take?” Sam quizzed. 

“Depending on the corruption, it could take five minutes or it could take me three days. It all depends.” I explained clicking on the next file.

“There’s Woods!” I shouted guestering towards the projector, this video appeared to be in the back of the studio this time. Simply of Woods taking the trash out. 

“I’m sorry Woods, but I was a little bit relieved to see you in the video just because I was more upset they were just about Sam.” I admitted. 

“Welcome to the club Woods.” Sam joked, giving him a thumbs up. 

We moved onto the next video, this time it was one of Hannah exiting the back of the studio. The video we clicked on next was another one of Hannah, this video was her leaving the parking lot in her car. The video looked as if Syphus accidentally switched the video to black and grey. After watching the video for a few seconds I realized Hannah was staring straight at Syphus. 

“Hannah did you see him!?” Sam accused. 

“I honestly was looking at my rear mirror.” She replied sheepishly. 

“Hannah, are you sure you don’t have any recollection of this?” I asked, hitting the palm of my hand on the table. 

“I don’t remember seeing anybody suspicious, honestly it looks like I was looking in the general vancity.” Hannah said. 

The person behind the camera seemed to have a thing about threes, the next file was Hannah yet again. Returning to the studio from the exit door. 

“This one makes it seem he’s much closer.” Woods pointed out. 

To our surprise, we found footage of Sierra. “This had to be recent, because Cam just started coming back and Sierra has only been here a handful of times.” I explained, folding my arms against my chest. Then leaned back in my chair. 

“This next one is 11.” I read off, “So, we are missing a file.” I concluded.The next three videos appeared to seem useless, the video quality alone was too blurry to make anything out of the footage. Sixteen was slightly weird, it looked to still be in the back of the studio. As the camera panned across the street from the orange base, I would really make out how far the zoom on the binoculars really went. 

“Where is he standing?” Woods questioned. “It looks like he’s standing right behind the bushes. Which is really close.” He added. 

“I am going to try and fix that file,” I said hitting my fist against the table. 

“Do we really want to do that?” Sam asked. 

“I mean what will we see that is worse than videos of us!?” I argued. 

“To be honest I really thought those were just birdwatching binoculars.” Woods said. 

“Well obviously he wasn’t birdwatching.” I said. 


	22. ↞Orange Base's Vermin↠

Friday, December 4th 

I finally found a program to run the file. It took overnight, but I finally recovered the footage. I swiftly gathered Woods, Sam, and CJ, Tanner, and Hannah and then walked to MegaDesk, I pulled up the file and right away I could tell Syhpus accidentally switched it to infrared. The screen was blanketed with a mixture of bright red and orange causing me to turn away. Syhpus was still at the back door, waiting in the bushes. A chill ran down my spine, noticing someone exited the building. The video shook violently as Syhpus took off running towards the door. A few seconds passed before the realization hit me, He got inside the orange base.

“Go, back.” Woods demanded.

I rewound the video, slowing the footage down. “That’s the balcony!” Woods shouted.

“How did you get that!?” Tanner exclaimed.

“I don’t see it.” I said, shaking my head.

“Take it further back.” Sam suggested.

I continued to rewind the footage, and slowed it down more. “We hid there for a BU episode.” CJ commented. “That’s where you put your product for Dope or Nope, your monitors.” He added.

“Because he literally got inside the orange base!” Sam screeched.

“My thing is, how did they catch the door and you not noticing?” Tanner asked Sam.

“I was wearing my headphones. As well as looking at my phone.” Sam replied.

“Did you leave late recently?” I asked.

“No. I just parked in the back of the base.” She responded.

“Have you locked up recently?” I questioned again.

“Yeah.” Sam said.

“Oh yeah, you shot here a couple times with Ryan.” I gasped.

“Ryan confirmed?” Tanner muttered.

“Check the Nest Camera.” Sam suggested.

“I think this is when everyone was gone, he’s been tracking us dude.'' Woods pointed out.

“Oh, that’s true. So he knows who’s coming out late or not.” Tanner gasped.

“Before we fixed this file, there were a bunch of videos of all of us arriving and leaving work.” Sam explained gesturing towards everyone in the room.

“Do we know it's a boy? Has he given us any evidence?” Tanner asked.

“No, but when he screamed it sounded like a man.” Sam replied.

I turned off the lights, then pulled up the Nest Camera footage in the orange base. I watched Sam leave the orange base, noticing the door didn’t close for a long minute as well the door didn’t close all the way. A few seconds passed, when Syhpus came into view, I also noticed he was holding what seemed to be a large black case. He looked around the warehouse a couple times before fixing what I assumed was a hat then walked further into the building.

He slowly checked all the offices, after looking around for a couple minutes Syhpus disappeared upstairs. I switched to the upstairs camera, but found it was only live footage. Three minutes passed before he walked back down the stairs, looking around one last time before walking out. Letting out a sigh, we all moved out of Megadesk and went out to the lobby. I sat on the stairs, putting my hands together, and put them up to my mouth.

“The main thing I noticed was he had a case.” I said finally.

“He also left with it, so we know he didn’t hide anything.” Sam Acknowledged

“Maybe he was upstairs and opened the case, then hid whatever was inside.” I considered.

“I think it was tools of some kind.” Woods said.

“To work on something?” Tanner quizzed.

“Yeah, or he’s hiding something again. Like a safe or a.” Wood began explaining.

“Or a camera.” Tanner interrupted.

“What kind of tools, and why the orange base?” I asked. “To me, it seems like he walked in here with a purpose.” I added.

“The way he was walking with the case in the orange base made it seem he was looking for something.” Sam said.

“Maybe he had more drugs.” Woods said.

“Doing what with them?” I asked.

“He screamed so loud last time, I feel like we would have heard it on camera.” Sam replied.

“I think he might be collecting something. Like what if he dropped something off the first time.” Tanner stated.

“There could be more safes.” Woods shrugged.

“He’s just going around collecting safes?” I asked, chuckling.

“Or like SD Cards, like maybe he is recording and he’s coming to get SD Cards. Then taking them, then dropping off new ones.” Tanner explained.

“Oh, you mean for the cameras he already has planted?” I questioned.

“Yeah, because he wouldn’t be able to connect to our WIFI or our recording devices.” Tanner said.

“I don’t know if he can or not, I would have to look it up.” I admitted.

“Why don’t we go to the orange base and retrace his steps?” Hannah suggested.

“That’s a good idea.” I said, waving my finger at her.

I stood up, and walked towards the orange base, we walked up the stairs, glancing around the loft a couple times. “At night are these normally locked?” Woods asked.

“All the doors are locked, and I didn’t hear anything loud happening on camera.” I replied.After a few minutes of rummaging through things we couldn’t find anything.

“I’ll have to check the red base cameras and see if we have any footage of him.” I shrugged.

“I am just more nervous about the case he was holding.” Sam commented.

“I’m sure we’ll find out what was inside the case sooner or later.” I replied.

“More later than sooner I hope.” Woods said.


	23. ↠ Disappearing Act↞

Monday, December 7th

I’ve been surfing the security camera for about two hours since I have gotten to the office. As I was going through the footage, Sam entered my office. We talked about our new security cameras for what seemed half an hour before an idea struck me.

“Do you know where Woods is?” I asked Sam as we walked towards the back door.

“Woods!?” Sam called following behind me.

“Yeah?” Woods responded popping out of his hiding place. As Hannah walked into the room as well.

“So I had an idea, I want to go to where he was scooping out.” I said partly opening the door.

As Sam, Woods, and I walked outside, Sam pulled out her phone and began watching the footage. “This is where Hannah was and she walked towards the dumpster.” She started explaining.

“This was where Hannah was?” I asked.

“Yeah, behind the blue base.” Sam replied.

“Oh yeah, her car was right by the dumpster. So where was he?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.

“I want to see how far those things zoom, because he could have been further from the base.” Woods pointed out.

“Oh yeah, you’re right.” I answered. “Do you want to go get the binoculars?” I added. After thinking about it for a couple minutes I let out a sigh. As we walked back inside Sam darted into the kitchen and grabbed another cheese stick.

“I’m losing them.” I sighed, putting my head in my hands.

“Do we really need to follow you?” Woods asked, holding out his hand, watching me continue to walk towards the stairs.

“No, I guess not. But I need your brains.” I replied, walking up the stairs.

“For what? A code to a vault we don’t know?” Sam joked.

We got the binoculars, then walked back downstairs. Before we walked outside Sam disappeared into the kitchen for more snacks. After Sam exited the kitchen, we exited the building. I tested the zoom on the binoculars, noticing there were three different levels of zoom.

“Where’s the first clip?” I asked Sam.

“Should I go stand at the exit?” Woods asked.

“Yeah. Is that where Hannah was? ” I questioned.

“Yeah.” Woods replied.

“I think he’s around here. Because if you look at the footage she comes out and follows her, but we don’t see her full car over here.” Sam explained, holding the phone in her hands.

“She drives off to the left?” I questioned.

“Oh, you mean her driving her car?” Sam asked.

“Was that a different clip?” I quizzed.

“There are two different clips. One of Hannah drives away and the other is when Hannah comes into work, but that’s on the other side of the orange base.” Sam explained.

“Oh, the one where she is walking to her car.” I nodded.

“I think he’s hiding between the cars.Because she walks out and I feel like you barely see her come over here.” Sam said.

“I can almost get an identical shot if this truck wasn’t here.” I said pointing to the truck behind me.“This is far dude.” I added.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t notice.” Sam said.

“The other thing is, he could have hidden behind these plants and never noticed him.” I said peeking through the plants next to the dumpsters.

“Should we go check behind orange now?” Sam suggested.

Once we got behind the orange base, we glanced around the parking lot. “Where would he have hidden? Over here by the door? ” I asked.

“Or maybe over there by the dumpsters?” Sam suggested.

“Oh yeah, but you would have to book it to make it to the door.” I pointed out.

“We could time it.” Woods suggested.

“First let’s see how fast the door shuts. Because we didn’t even open it all the way,” I said.

“I did.” Sam said.

“You opened it all the way?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Sam replied.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s a big door.” Sam shrugged, showing the way she opened the door. Noticing the door slowed down before fully closing.

“About six seconds.” Woods called.

“Let me see.” I said running back towards the bushes by the door. We started recreating the scenario finding Syhpus has plenty of time to catch the door. “If the door was opened a little bit more and I had better shoes I could totally make it from the dumpster.” I explained.

As we were talking I noticed I had a notification “I have a few cameras out inside the red base, I sent you the log in.” Kevin replied.

We quickly began walking around the red base counting the cameras, running into Hannah once again. After that we headed back towards the blue base and brought up the footage. As I pulled up the footage, I watched Shypus entering the back warehouse door, carrying the same black case.

“What if he’s jamming the door to get in?” Sam suggested.

“That requires a Fob does it not?” Woods asked.

Yeah, it does.” I nodded.

“Didn’t we disable that one?” Woods asked.

“Yeah, but people all over Reddit keep telling me you can duplicate Fobs.” I explained.

“WHAT!?” Both Sam and Woods shouted.

“How Kevin explained it to me was the Fobs we have a code that can be rewritten in a sort of way, so he could make multiple Fobs to get in.” I explained rewinding the footage.

“What’s that hanging from the case?” Sam asked watching the footage.

“Oh, god dude, that’s a wire.” Woods gasped.

“Why? What is that case?” I asked. I quickly switched and rewatched the footage. Finding we couldn’t see him. “Where did he go?” I asked again.

“He didn’t come upstairs.” Sam said.

“He didn’t go into the other warehouse, and he didn’t come up the stairs. So where did he go!?” I said.

“When does he leave?” Hannah asked.

I fast forwarded the footage, until forty-five minutes I watched Syhpus leave without the case.

“So he left without the case.” Sam pointed out.

“Wait, so he left the case!?” I exclaimed.

“He was in there for almost an hour, what did he do?” Woods asked.

I was silent as I thought to myself for a long minute, when the realization hit me. “The briefcase is still in there.” I whispered, running a hand over my face.

“The question is, where? He disappeared for forty-five minutes! Where could he have hidden it? ” Sam exclaimed.

“I don’t know.” I replied, shaking my head. “Hopefully I find something in the footage slowed down.” I added.


	24. ↠LAPD↞

Monday, December 14

I spent what felt like hours combing through the red base footage, I had to back away and start thinking where he could have gone. I went to find Sam and Woods, in the meantime, Hannah joined the small group. Then we headed over towards the red base warehouse. Sam and I retraced Syphus’s steps, while Woods glanced around the room slowly.

“He was in here for fifty plus minutes. He had to put it somewhere where it took a lot of time.” Hannah pointed out.

“Do we really have to go through everything here?” Sam asked.

“We have to make sure.” I replied, then began shifting through boxes.

After searching through the pile for ten minutes, I glanced at the stack of legos. “I feel like we should move those to be sure.” I sighed.

“I checked back there, and I didn’t see anything. But I didn’t check in between the legos.” Woods commented.

“I feel like there is nothing back there.” Sam argued.

“You don’t know that, he could have placed the case and built the legos around them.” I countered.

Sam moved the legos slightly, peeking behind them, then shook her head. “Alright, the only other suggestion I have is moving all the legos away from the stairs. Maybe he cut a hole in the side, because these are rickety stairs if you ask me.” I said.

“How would he have cut open the stairs? I feel like we would have heard him moving the legos and he didn’t seem to have any tools with him.” Hannah questioned.

“He looked like Syphus knew what he was doing.” Woods added.

“That was just the footage we saw.” I said. “It’s just these stairs are creepy.” I stated folding my arms over my chest.

Woods and I started pushing the legos away from the wall, meanwhile Hannah managed to squeeze behind the legos and get a good look at the wall. “I can see the whole wall, and I don't see anything.” She said.

We moved the legos back into place, then regrouped. “Are we sure we didn’t miss him going up the stairs?” Woods asked.

“Yeah, I looked through the footage for hours.” I insisted.

“Is there anything over on this wall?” Hannah asked, knocking on the wall up the stairs.

“Are you sure, it’s not something we are looking at in this pile?” Woods asked.

“No, it was definitely a case.” Sam commented.

I walked towards the exit door, “I can see the camera up the stairs, from that top camera all we see is Syphus walking in the door and towards the stairs. If we can pin-point the exact area, he came out of view so maybe we can find where he hid the case.” I suggested.

“We never saw him walk up the stairs” Sam noted as we walked up the stairs. I followed behind her, feeling the stairs, bend slightly as we walked. We walked down the stairs again, as Woods walked down the stairs, I noticed one of the boards move.

“You think it’s underneath the stairs?” Woods offered as he continued down the stairs. Once Woods reached the second stair I stopped him.

“It completely bends in the middle.” Sam said.

I tried to pry open the stairs with my hands first, when that didn’t work I decided to grab a crowbar. “Wait, are we really opening these steps right now?” Sam asked.

Nobody answered Sam, I stabbed the crowbar into the step, then began pulling the board away from the step, once the board was away from the step, at first I didn’t notice anything underneath until I looked closer. There, sitting in the back of the middle of the step was the case.

“Stop.” Sam whispered, putting her hands over her mouth.

“Why? Why did he come in here and plant it? Did he plant the other cases too?” I asked. I bent down and went to grab the case, but Woods stopped me.

“Do you really want to grab that thing?” He asked nervously.

“Should I not?” I shot back.

“I would try by the handle.” Sam suggested.

After a few minutes of discussion, I gently grabbed the case by the handle, pulled it out from beneath the stairs, blowing the dust off the top, then finally set it right side up. Noticed on the back of the case in white bold letters was: _**Property of LAPD.**_

“Stop!” Woods screeched as he stood quickly. Sam and Hannah could only laugh in response.

“Now we know why.” I stated walking away from the case quickly. I ran a hand down my face, shaking my head as I left the room to sit down. Sam followed behind me, “What do we even do with that?” She asked softly.

“I have no idea.” I answered.

“What even is that case?” I questioned.

“I don’t know either, I don’t know what would be in that case.” She replied.

“GUNS!?” Woods shouted from inside the warehouse.

I put my hand over my eyes, shaking my head. I just want all of this to go away, I just want to put the case back and forget we ever found it.” I admitted.

“Is it a gun case?” Woods asked, coming into the room.

“Why would he plant a gun case?” I questioned.

“Do we call them and say we have a case of LAPD?” Sam offered.

“Okay, they come for the case and then what? They take it. Or we get blamed for it?” I argued. “Or that’s the whole point of it, even more frightening to think about is he’s connected.” I added.

“Like he is LAPD,” Woods said.

“That’s what I am saying.” I replied.

“Or has a connection in the LAPD.” Sam commented.

For an hour we stood outside of the warehouse discussing until we decided to go back into the room. “I feel like we should open it and figure out what is inside before we call the police. Because we will have a little better understanding of what is inside, instead of us guessing what was inside as the police take it away.” I stated.

“I’m leaning towards we don’t, everything we have found so far has been sinister and I think this is the time we say no.” Sam argued.

“I say we open it, yes there could be something dangerous, inside just because Syphus planted it here for some reason. That’s why I say yes, is because he put it underneath the stairs for a reason.” Woods responded.

“I agree with Sam, we have never touched anything that possibly belonged to the police. Even if we do open it, we don’t know if we will know what is inside. Why would we touch it more?” Hannah explained.

“CJ, you'll be the deciding vote.” I finally said.

“I feel like we should open it.” CJ said.

“We don’t know if it is really the police, it could be just a case he had and then planted here.” Hannah pointed out.

As Hannah was speaking, I walked over towards the case, “I don’t think it matters at the moment.” I announced.

“Why?” Woods and Hannah said in unison.

“There is a combination lock on it.” I said.

“Of course there is.” Woods cheered sarcastically.

I slipped on some gloves, and began pulling the case from underneath the stairs, but was stopped by a cord coming out from the back of the case and then it disappeared underneath the stairs.

“It’s connected to something?” Sam questioned.

“I know this is a long shot, but do you want to try 863?” Sam asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

I threw back my head and laughed, before bending down next to the case and tried it. I pressed the small button on the case, but it didn’t work. I sat down next to the case, noticing there was some writing on the wire.

“This is an ethernet cable.” I announced.

“So there is something techy in there.” Sam nodded. “What about 590?” Sam asked.

“That’s a good guess.” I said, putting in the numbers and then pressed the button, but that didn’t work either. After trying different combinations, I let out a sigh and then slid the case back under the stairs.

“I say we go into the vault, and try and find something in there.” I suggested.

“I feel like we have tried everything.” Sam argued.

“We might have missed one, I honestly forget how many random numbers we find that are significant.” I admitted wiping the sweat from my forehead.

“Good point.” Sam whispered.

“The question that is running through my head right now, is why?” Woods barked.

“Wish I knew bro.” I replied. 


	25. ↞Under My Watchful Eye↠

Wednesday, December 16th

We all sat silently in my office for a long minute. I opened my mouth to speak, then quickly closed it. I couldn’t form words, he broke in a handful of times right under our noses it started to frustrate me. How has he gotten in so many times? How has nobody seen him trying to break in? It always felt he was one step ahead while we were still several steps back. Running a hand over my face, an idea struck me.

“We should go around where there aren’t any cameras.” I suggested.

“Where would our top priority be?” Sam questioned.

“The places that were broken into.” I replied.

“So the red base.” Sam noted.

“Well, we have the blue base and then the orange base.” I pointed out.

We all headed towards the red base, running into Mike, who was eating his lunch. “Hey , I have a question for you.” I called walking up to Mike.

“What’s up?” He replied.

“Is there anywhere in the studio where we are blind in cameras?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling.

Mike thought for a minute before shaking his head, “Alright, enjoy your burrito.” I commented walking into the garage. We walked back into the red base warehouse, glancing around the room slowly.

“The thing that has been bugging me is that case, why has he not come back for it?” I questioned.

“We don’t know that he’s not going to come back for it.” Sam argued.

“I know, that’s what I am saying. We get more angles, maybe closer angles.” I suggested.

“Do we want to try and hide them in the legos?” Sam suggested.

“That’s a good idea.” I replied.

I let out a sigh, walked over towards the stairs crouching down. When something caught my eye, a small camera hooked up to the side of the stairs, the world seemed to slow, he’s watching us repeatedly over and over in my head. Warning bells rang loudly in my head, as I put a hand over my mouth. I looked down quickly, and then glanced back towards Sam and Woods. My heart was beating in my chest as I scrambled to pull my phone from my pocket. My hands shook as I quickly texted both Sam and Woods waiting for their replies nervously.

I watched both Sam and Woods pull out their phones as they continued their conversation. Glancing down at their phones their mouths hung open, as they looked up towards me. Their eyes wide.

“Do you want to talk about thumbnail ideas on a walk?” Sam asked, trying to keep her voice even.

“Yeah, I need the air anyway.” I shrugged.

We all walked outside, “Is that working!?” Woods shouted.

“I’m confused, I mean I got your text but I don’t understand.” Sam said.

“There is a camera underneath the stairs.” Woods informed.

“Did we not see that before?” I questioned.

“I don’t know, we didn’t really look very far under the stairs.” Sam said.

“This is so unreal, that’s what he spent that entire time doing, not just planting the case.” I sighed.

“That makes sense, he was setting up the case and a camera to watch the case?” Sam questioned.

“Here is the thing, I have absolutely no idea if that is the only camera, he has.” I commented folding my arms over my chest. “Because he’s been inside all three bases.” I added.

“He’s been all over, when he broke into the orange base, he could have been setting up cameras.” Sam shouted pointing towards the base.

“Exactly.” I screeched.

“Okay, so whatever is inside that case is worth watching.” Sam concluded.

“The scary thing is, there is a possibility that he knows every play, or everything we are doing when we are doing it.” I announced.

“Maybe that was his motive for breaking in again, to get ahead of us.” Sam answered.

“What do we do with the camera?” Woods questioned.

“That’s the question, what do we do to make sure more chaos doesn’t happen?” I said.

“We do have one thing, he doesn’t know we know he planted a camera.” Woods said.

“That’s if our acting was good in there.” I shouted.

“I mean it’s not completely out left field.” Woods argued.

“I agree with Woods, there is a chance he still doesn’t know.” Sam nodded her head.

“Let’s break it down for my own sanity please. He breaks in and plants the case and the camera. We stumbled onto it because I was basically doing the same thing, what we potentially do is go back in there and give off false information.” I shrugged. “But what would that do?” I added.

“Do you want to talk about it in Mega Desk?” Sam asked.

“Mega Desk might be bugged, did he go in there?” I asked.

“Yeah, he went in there.” Sam sighed. “We should go where he hasn’t gone before.” She added.

“Well, where we think he hasn’t gone before.” I rolled my eyes.

“No, we know he wasn’t in the editorial offices at all because they were locked.” Woods pointed out.

“True.” I said, waving my finger, as we all walked into the orange base. I watched Woods unlock the door and stepped inside, followed by Sam and then finally me. I closed the door behind me quickly.

We all sat down, as I ran a hand over my mouth. “Okay, what’s the play?” I asked.

“My frustration is, he’s broken into the place plenty of times, but technically he didn’t because he had a key.” Sam began.

“Maybe that’s the play, catching him breaking in. Kevin deactivated his key fob so to get this case he would have to break in.” I said.

“Okay, so are we landing to the conclusion we want him to break in again?” Sam asked.

After hearing it come from Sam all I could do was laugh, the idea seemed absurd. “It’s either that or we just leave the information and do nothing.” Woods shrugged.

“I would rather do this idea than leave the camera. That way we will for once have the upper hand.” Sam urged.

“We could have the potential to end all of this.” I commented, as Sam nodded her head.

“I feel like we have a time frame to work with, with this upper hand.” She explained.

“Okay, so what do we do? We try to use a ruse or something to lure him back using the case as leverage?” I questioned.

“How are we going to do that?” Woods asked.

“Say we are going to open it?” I suggested.

“Why wouldn’t we open it right there in front of him?” Sam asked.

I nodded my head, thinking to myself for a minute before speaking. “How about this? We say we have a locksmith coming tomorrow.” I said. “So if he tries to come before that we’ll be ready.” I reassured.

“To give him a window of opportunity.” Sam said.

“Yeah, basically.” I replied.

“Won’t we need cameras to catch him breaking in?” She asked.

“I say, stake out.” I announced.

“I’m down.” Woods nodded his head.

“I’m down, because I feel like we won’t be in any real danger.” Sam said.

“I think we should go back into the warehouse and play off the locksmith idea.” I concluded.

“We should have a story first.” Sam pointed out.

We talked about different stories for about ten to fifteen minutes before he headed back towards the red base.

“So what were you saying?” I asked. “We were saying we were all set.” I added.

“Yeah, he said he does any sort of lock.” Woods informed.

“Who does?” I asked.

“Tim.” Woods confirmed.

“Oh, right Tim.” I said.

“Yeah, he said he can open up any type of lock. He can open doors, he can open cars, whatever you really need. He should be here tomorrow morning.” Woods listed off.

“What time do you think he’ll get here?” Sam questioned.

“9:30,” Woods replied.

“How long has he been a locksmith?” I asked.

“I don’t know as long as you’ve been on YouTube. I don’t know.” Woods countered, causing Sam and I laugh.

“Oh, so he should know how to open the case.” Sam said gesturing towards the case.

“Yes.” Woods said.

“Great, tomorrow morning we’ll finally find out what is inside that case.” I said slowly walking out of the room and outside.

“I feel like that was a fairly natural conversation.” Sam said once outside. “I think we stake out tonight, and he either comes or he doesn’t.” She shrugged.

“Here’s what we do, I am going to send everyone home early, go home, get the van and some supplies you guys do the same thing.” I ordered.

“Great, let’s do it.” Woods and Sam said in unison.


	26. ↞Operation: Stake Out↠

Friday, December 18th

A few hours passed, now it was time to finally catch Syhpus. Our plan was simple, the trap was set, now it was just time to execute. So many emotions were running through me, part of me wanted to talk myself out of doing the stake out. The other half was too amped not to do it, after setting-in the trap so perfectly.

“So what’s the best case scenario?” Sam asked.

“It would be us at a safe distance filming him breaking into the studio.” I said.

“Well, I brought snacks. I made sure to get the ones you like.” Sam informed me.

I gasped, “Really!?” I exclaimed excitedly.

“We should come up with a strategy first before anything.” I quickly changed the topic.

“I know the plan was to set up some cameras in the red base.” Sam inputted.

“Well, I was thinking about one of us getting a long lens...looking at you Woods and going on the roof.” I said while making eye contact with Woods.

Woods didn’t say anything at first, he looked from Sam then back to me. “Well, I was actually thinking about the idea.” He said.

“Yeah, that would work out because if me and you are in the car. Then we could scope out in front of the red and the blue base. Meanwhile, Woods could watch the back.” Sam gasped.

“Do we really think he’s going to show up?” I asked with a sigh.

“I honestly don’t know, but since we are here and all ready, we might as well think that way.” Sam replied.

“Oh, I am going to go through with the stake out because you said you brought snacks.” I replied sarcastically.

“Kay, also I brought walkie-talkies.” Sam said.

“We’ll need roof access, did Izzy open it?” Woods asked.

“You need a key for it.” I replied.

“Do you have it?” Woods asked.

I nodded my head, while Sam started speaking. “So, you feel comfortable going up on the roof? We’ll give you a walkie and a camera.” Sam said.

“While you’re up there do me a favor and just run the camera. Make some jokes that way if he doesn’t come and we can laugh at it later.” I interjected.

“I’ll do my best, I’m not in the mood for jokes.” Woods joked.

We walked around the office gathering everything, once we gathered everything, we headed towards the back of the base to the van. I unlocked the van, after we all got settled, we drove around the base, after half an hour we drove around the base one last time before we decided it was time to set up the trap.

“The earliest he’s ever shown up was what seven something?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Sam replied.

I parked the van in the middle of the parking lot, as Sam grabbed the last Sprite and the package of gummy bears then handed them to me.

“When it gets a little darker, I think we should turn off the lights.” I pointed out as Woods and Sam nodded their heads in agreement.

I spun my chair, stood up, and then finally set up the mini table. We sat in silence for what seemed like ten minutes before I opened my mouth to speak. “What keeps going through my mind is why us? Is it because we keep finding the stuff? Or is it because we are in Shypus’s way?” I asked.

“I feel like it’s not personal, I feel like it’s just because we are in whoever owned the units last. As well as we keep finding things.” Sam replied.

“How do we know our studio wasn’t picked?” I argued.

“I don’t think so, I agree with some of the viewer’s theories. I think it’s just because all of these units have been connected at some point.” She explained.

“That’s not a theory, that's true. When the buildings were built they were one whole unit.” I explained.

“Yeah, so I think whoever wants all these keys and items we are finding knew that at one point.” Sam said.

“Plus, you found a safe inside the drywall.” Woods pointed out.

“To answer your previous question about the big picture. It really beats me.” Sam said, shaking her head.

“I feel like it isn’t personal because then they would have to personally know us.” Woods said gesturing towards the group.

“I feel like these ‘attacks’ would be more personally targeted towards us.” Sam started.

“I feel like strike one was personal.” I interrupted.

“Yeah, that one was, but I feel like it would be more about you or the YouTube channel.” Sam pointed out.

“I think we are just in the way.” Woods commented.

“I agree, I feel like we aren’t supposed to be finding the things we are.” Sam agreed.

I glanced out the windshield, “Alright, I think it is dark enough. Do you guys want to go get ready?” I asked, sipping my soda.

Woods and Sam nodded their head, as Woods slipped on his jacket and then exited the van. While Woods went to grab the ladder Sam and I drove towards the back of the red base. Sam set up the ladder, and then we watched Woods slowly climb up to the roof. Once Woods was settled, we set the ladder in red base and then quickly went back into the van.

“The stake out begins.” I commented as we drove back to the front of the building.

I parked the car, while Sam checked on Woods. Glancing around the empty parking lot, a chill ran down my spine from the silence. As we were waiting, Sam and I decided to play twenty questions.

“In the van.” Wood’s voice came through the walkie talkie five minutes later.

I quickly glanced around the parking lot, not seeing anything. I looked down at the walkie, then back up at Sam.

“Woods when you're speaking hold down the button, I know you know how to use a walkie talkie. But also you just interrupted a game of twenty questions.” Sam scolded.

“I am glad you guys are having fun, and for the record, I am holding down the button Sam.” Woods mocked.

“Woods guess what I am thinking, Matt is kinda bad at this game.” Sam laughed.

“What are the hints?” Woods asked.

“It’s a type of car.” Sam replied.

A long moment passed, “Is it the mountaineer?” Woods asked.

“Yes!” Sam shouted.

It felt like half an hour passed before static started coming through the walkie talkie, I thought I could hear voices on the other end, but the static muffled it too much. A few moments after that Woods panicked voice came through again.

“HE’S HERE, HE’S HERE!” He whispered.

Sam and I scrambled to buckle the seat belts, I turned on my headlights and started the car. While Sam pulled out her phone to call Woods only to discover he left his phone in the car. Sam continued to try and get an answer from Woods, but the other line was dead silent.

I swiftly started driving around the building, when I went to make the turn I slowed down. Catching a glimpse of a man wearing all black.

“No, no, no, no.” I repeated to myself.

Sam started hitting my shoulder, “Matt, Matt!” She shouted.

The world seemed to slow down, there he was standing a couple feet away from the van. I sat frozen in my seat, as my heart hammered against my chest and my blood went to my ears. Causing everything to be muffled by a soft ringing in my ears. Shypus and I locked eyes for thirty seconds before he started taking off running, cutting through the bushes and disappearing around the building. I snapped out of my trance and started driving after him. As I turned the corner, he was gone. My thoughts were going a mile a minute, how did he disappear so quickly!?

“Where did he go!?” I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air.

“He must have run through the bushes or something!” Sam shouted back pointing towards the alleyway as we kept driving.

“Around the corner and he’s gone? How is that possible!?” I screeched slamming my hand against the steering wheel.

“Nobody is that fast.” Sam pointed out.

We circled the building one last time, as we were coming back down the alleyway Woods tried to flag us down. Sam rolled down her window, “What are you talking about?” She asked. Unable to understand Woods, “Just come down.” She ordered as I drove around the corner.

“Oh no Matt.” Sam gasped pointing towards the garage door. It was opened, and the car was gone.

“No, no, no. How is that even possible!?” I shouted quickly, turned off the car and got out. As Woods came down from the roof.

It’s gone, he took the car.


	27. ↞What's Rightfully Mine↠

Monday, December 21st

“He got it!” Woods shouted from the side of the roof.

“I already see that!” I shouted back.

“Why weren’t you responding?” Sam asked.

“I dropped the walkie...I screwed up.” Woods replied.

“What happened?” I asked, pressing my fingers into my eyes.

“He came over…” Woods trailed off as he climbed down from the roof. “I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to drop it.” Woods added, his voice low.

“It’s alright, the main thing is we all are safe.” I reassured.

“But, I have it.” Woods said, holding out the camera bag.

“Have what?” I questioned.

“I have him on camera.” Woods explained.

“You filmed the whole thing?” I gasped.

“I filmed the whole thing.” Woods confirmed.

“Was it clear?” Sam quizzed.

“He was wearing a mask and sunglasses if that’s what you mean.” Woods replied raising his hand.

“Wait, Wait, when we came around you’re telling me he was already inside!?” I said waving my hands in front of me.

“Yeah, I was trying to flag you guys down.” Woods said.

“I thought he ducked behind one of the dumpsters.” I said pointing towards the dumpster.

“He didn’t even break in, he had a…” Woods started.

“Key Fob?” I finished.

“But Kevin deactivated it!” Sam shouted.

“I can show you.” Woods said, starting to pull out the camera.

“Let’s go inside, and look.” I said.

We all quickly ran inside, setting the camera up to MegaDesk. I pulled up the footage and then pressed play. I watched Woods mess around with the camera as he blogged to himself. Giggling to myself slightly, this went on for twenty minutes until Woods gasped. Woods panned the camera around quickly, Syhpus seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“No,no.” Woods whispered quickly, grabbing the walkie. Shypus started walking towards the building, Woods leaned forward, dropping the walkie. The walkie hit the ground with a loud thud, shattering the back of it. Shypus glanced around quickly as he started walking away. Woods ducked behind the ledge of the roof, following him down the alley zooming in on his face. Unfortunately Syhpus’s face was covered with a mask and sunglasses so we couldn’t get any distinguished features.

We watched him take off through the bushes, screeching to a talk at the red base back door. Syhpus swiped what I assumed was the key fob he had in his pocket, gaining access inside. “He had a fob, either he stole another one, someone gave it to him, or he works for us.” Woods listed off.

“You’re saying he’s one of us?” I accused, spinning around in the chair.

“Out of those three options, one of those is correct, we just don’t know which one.” Woods pointed out.

I turned back towards the computer, the thought of someone in the studio being Shypus seemed unheard of, but in the back of my mind I knew Woods was right. It was a huge possibility, the question was who? I let out a soft sigh, pushing the thought to the back of my head. Pressing play once again, the van continued driving around the building.

“STOP! NO, HE’S INSIDE!” Woods shouted. Woods growled, running towards the ladder. Before stopping in his tracks, Woods panned down the camera towards the garage noticing it started opening. As well as light flushing out, slowly the car began driving out of the garage.

“NO, NO, NO! GOD NO!” Woods shouted, watching Shypus drive off with the car.

We watched the rest of the video, I ran a hand over my face slowly as I inhaled deeply. Exhaling slowly, “Did he take the case? Because that’s why he came back right?” Woods suddenly asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied. “We haven’t even checked to see.” I added, leaning back in my chair.

“I don’t think he does, that would mean he would have to pry open that stair again. In a short amount of time, I feel like he had to choose in that moment.” Sam explained. “What doesn’t make sense to me is, he had a key to the car and the building.” She added.

Suddenly a thought hit me, I pulled out my phone quickly. After refreshing the page a few times, I put a hand to my mouth chuckling.

“What?” Sam questioned, raising her eyebrows.

“I tracked it.” I replied.

“How!?” Sam yelled.

“I put a tracker on the car.” I laughed.

“When!?” Woods shouted.

“Like a month ago.” I replied.

“And you didn’t tell us?” Sam said.

“Well, I am glad I didn’t if you suspect someone here.” I answered.

“That’s true.” Woods nodded his head.

“This is one of the traps I set.” I admitted.

“Where is he now?” Woods asked.

Glancing down at my phone, “Speeding down the highway.” I answered.

“What do we do with that?” Sam questioned, glancing around the room.

“I say we wait for him to stop the car, make sure he’s not around and go after the car. Because technically it’s my car.” I informed.

“Why would he steal the car instead of the case?” Sam questioned holding out her hand.

“I think there is something still in the car that is important, the case has either no value to him or it hasn’t served its purpose yet.” I answered.

“He was probably coming back for the case and the car, but since we were there he had to make a quick choice of what to do. I am sure that the case is still there, I agree with Sam. There is no way he had enough time to get both.” Woods explained.

“I say if it is a couple hours away, then we go and get the car, Woods are you game?” I quizzed.

“Yeah.” He shrugged.

“Alright, tomorrow we go and get the car.” I said.


	28. ↞Lost and Found↠

Wednesday, December 23rd 

Sleeping was nonexistent, my nerves were too wound up about the previous night. Every so often I would glance at my phone, hoping he would stop somewhere close. My morning seemed to go by in a blur until lunch Shypus finally stopped. He seemed to stop in the middle of nowhere, I gathered Woods and CJ then we went inside the old armory. Sam Sam was too exhausted from the previous night to join us which I understood. So Bailey will have to take her place, this whole situation still seemed unreal to me, everything seemed to be moving faster as this progressed. I pulled up the tracker app and then pulled up the tracker’s history. It appeared Shypus disappeared up in the San Francisco Canyon.

“Do we know where he is now?” Woods asked finally.

“The tracker stopped giving off a signal around the San Francisco Canyon. So I am guessing there aren’t a lot of cell towers up there.” I replied.

“No, really.” Woods shrugged.

“The thing is, it hasn’t come back online. That could mean two things, one he found the tracker. Or he hasn’t gotten to a place with a signal.” I listed off.

“After the reservoir there isn’t any signal, I hadn’t gone out that far, but there are a couple places where me and my friends would hit up there in high school. You know?” Woods said.

“No, I was a good boy.” I answered.

“We weren’t doing anything bad.” Woods shrugged, holding out his hand.

“No, just getting high.” I replied.

“No!” Woods shouted.

“I didn’t mean that, I meant an emotional high.” I tried again.

“You mean an adrenaline high?” Woods asked.

“Yeah, those.” I chirped, snapping my fingers.

“Weren’t you ever a high schooler?” Woods questioned.

“I used to get my adrenaline from books.” I answered in a whisper earning a deep laugh from Woods.

I shook my hands in front of me, “Back on topic. I think we should scope out some locations and try and find the car.” I suggested.

Woods and I walked into MegaDesk, before we drove up there I wanted to look at the locations on a map. I pulled up google maps, tracking where Shypus drove. The tracker seemed to lose connection around a bend that was surrounded by trees.

“You said around this bend there were a couple places?” I asked.

“Yeah, after the power plant from what I remembered there was no signal.” He answered.

I moved the map around, until I found what appeared to be some sort of abandoned highway. “Can we get on this road with our cars?” I asked.

“I think they have it blocked off, because it’s been overruled by nature now I assume. But you can drive around some parts.” Woods informed me.

“Are there any other possible places?” I questioned.

“There is the spooky house.” Woods announced.

“It’s called Spooky House?” I said skeptically.

“That’s what we called it in high school. And it was just a place to throw broken bottles at the walls.” Woods said nonchalantly.

I moved the map until I found what Woods was describing, finding some weird white blocks on the land. “What are those?” I asked.

“There was one time when we were up there during sunset, there was a whole dining room table set up.” Woods described.

“Oh, then it can’t be that spooky.” I said.

“That’s the thing, there was nobody there.” Woods replied.

“Okay, that’s creepy. At least we have some prime areas to check out.” I said changing the topic quickly.

“I was thinking maybe we should use the drone so I charged it.” Woods announced.

“Oh, that’s a good idea.” I admitted.

I grabbed the drone, then went to grab the mountaineer keys. Meeting, Woods and CJ at my car. As we drove closer to the edge of the city, my stomach started to flip and make me slightly nauseous. We drove for about fifteen minutes before Woods opened his mouth to speak.

“So what’s the plan? The Mountaineer is there, do we keep driving and loop back?” He questioned.

“I think we keep driving a little bit, then pull out the drone to look closer. If he’s there and attacks the drone, no big deal I can replace that.” I answered.

We drove for what seemed like half an hour before we came up to the abandoned highway. I parked on the shoulder of the road, then we all slowly got out. We looked around the area for a few minutes before we decided to walk down the road and around the bend. We walked for a mile, not finding any evidence. Letting out a sigh, I started heading back towards the car. Once we got back to the car, we continued driving.

Ten minutes late, we came up to the Spooky House. I sped up and parked on the shoulder of the road a couple miles away. Woods unbuckled and pulled out the drone.

“Listen, I just want you to go down to the house and see if the car is there first. If the car is there, try and get as close as possible to see if anyone is in the front seat.” I instructed.

Woods, set the drone on the road, and then took off. Woods drove the drone towards the Spooky House, until he was right above it. Woods continued to creep the drone closer and closer towards the house until something red caught my eye, Woods gasped. “There it is!?” He shouted.

“No stop, can you get closer?” I asked.

Woods slowly started getting closer to the ground, barely missing a tree. Woods managed to drive the drone close to the car, not seeing anyone in the front seat. Woods slowly circled around the car. “Let’s go get it.” I said, putting my hands over my face and laughed.

As we walked closer towards the car, my stomach began cramping from nerves. We stopped a couple feet from the car, I rubbed my hands nervously. “The closer we get to this car, the more my confidence fades.” I admitted.

Woods glanced around a couple times, “I feel like he would have heard the drone.” He said.

“That’s not what I meant, I meant what if all of this is a trap? Or the common theme of worry for us is this is a bomb.” I said, chuckling while gesturing towards the car.

“Where did you put the tracker?” Woods asked.

“I could go get the tracker, but I feel like before we even touch the car we should do a look around first.” I explained.

“I could throw some rocks at it.” Woods suggested kicking some rocks in the dirt.

“Throw some rocks? What, are we back in high school?” I laughed.

“This is kind of nostalgic.” He admitted shrugging. “We don’t have to touch the car, we can just look.” Woods added.

“That’s a good plan.” I said, as we started walking towards the car. Woods peeked through the window noticing the seats were torn up.

“Should we call Kevin or Sam and get a second option?” Woods suggested.

“Yeah Maybe.” I sighed, walking a couple feet away from the car finding a bullet casing. “That’s not good.” I added picking one up.

“I’m sure that’s normal around here.” Woods said.

“You think this is normal?” I quizzed.

“Well, yeah, out in the middle of nowhere. A lot of people like to shoot their guns.” He replied. “Looks like a rifle of some kind, couldn't have been our guy.” Woods added.

I walked over towards the car again, bending down spotting the tracker right away. “The tracker is still here, so good news is he didn’t find it.” I said. I pulled the tracker off the car, glancing over towards Woods. “I think I am going to leave it just in case.” I explained.

“That would be a good idea.” Woods agreed.

I let out a sigh, standing, I ran a hand over my face as I walked away from the car. I pulled out my phone, While Woods was checking around the Mountaineer, I decided to check the voicemail Kevin sent me a while ago.

**_“I was checking the logs, the fob was registered under Woods. It’s Woods!”_ **


	29. ↞Accusations↠

Tuesday, December 29th

I glanced back at Woods, quickly pocketing my phone. “Let’s go, I’m not taking the car.” I said walking away from the car.

Woods watched me for a minute before following a couple feet behind me. “W-What why? What's wrong?” He stammered.

“We just gotta go.” I urged. Woods glanced back from the car back to me, throwing his hands in the air. Woods opened his mouth to speak, but closed it quickly.

“Just leave the car, there is nothing in there that I care about.” I snapped.

Woods jerked with surprise, “That’s essentially why we came out here Matt, it’s your car.” He said.

We made it halfway up the hill before I let out a sigh and stopped. Turning towards Woods, “Do you have something to tell me?” I asked.

“Excuse me?” Woods answered, still shocked.

“Do you have something to tell me?” I repeated.

“No, I have nothing to tell you. I don’t know….what would I have to tell you?” Woods asked, confused.

“I don’t know man, things aren’t adding up.” I finally answered. “You’ve been here before.” I said, stopping in my tracks, and then pointed back down towards the hill.

“Yeah, I have been here before, I told you that before.” Woods said, putting his hands on his chest. “What do you think is happening right now?” He asked, taking off his sunglasses.

“I don’t know man, I honestly don’t know.” I answered.

“Do you think this place….I don’t understand this attitude from you. This is coming out of nowhere.” Woods stated.

“I am confused, tracing everything back. You were the one who told me about this Spooky House. And we should go check it out, which is where the tracker stopped exactly.” I explained.

“So you think I am involved.” Woods finally said nodding his head.

“I don’t know if you are involved dude! I feel like I don’t have enough information.” I shouted.

“Of course we won’t have all the information, Why would I bring you out here?” I argued.

I looked up, putting my hands on my hips. “Bro, it was your Fob.” I sighed.

Woods’s face contorted in confusion again, “What was my Fob?” He asked.

“It was your Fob, he used your Fob.” I repeated.

Woods shook his head, “I have my Fob, he didn’t use my Fob.” Woods pulled out his wallet, holding out his hand as he opened his wallet. Tilting his wallet, Woods’s Fob slid out of his wallet and onto his hand.

“How did you know it was my Fob?” Woods asked.

“Kevin voicemail me, he registered under your name and used your Fob to get in.” I explained.

“I don’t have an excuse for that, but I am not involved. I don’t know how he got my Fob.” Woods reassured.

I pressed my fingers against my temple, pacing back and forth for a few minutes. I paused when I was a couple inches away from Woods, letting out a soft sigh. “Bro, I know it’s not you. I am just so confused. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to process how he got your Fob.” I admitted.

We were silent for ten minutes before I nodded my head, glancing back towards the Mountaineer. “Let’s just go bro.” I whispered, starting to walk back to the car.

Once in the car Woods opened his mouth to speak, “Look man, I get it, we didn’t get any sleep last night. Shypus used my Fob.” He said.

“How?” I interrupted.

“I don’t know, I don’t know how that system works. I don’t know how he was able to use our system in the first place.” Woods replied.

“Was there any point you were without your Fob?” I asked.

“There were a couple times I lost my Fob, but that was years ago.” Woods explained.

“Didn’t you lose it a couple months ago?” I realized.

“You’re right, I did.” Woods admitted.

“Maybe you didn’t lose it, maybe he stole it.” I announced.

“How? It was in my wallet the whole time.” Woods asked.

“I don’t know dude, with what we’ve seen him do so far. I wouldn’t put it past him to find a way.” I said.

We continued to drive in silence, it took about an hour to get back to the studio. When we got back to the studio, we walked into the garage, talking about what had happened the previous night. “We should retrace his steps.” I finally said.

We walked around to the roof ladder, I walked down the alley to where Shypus stood. Glancing around, not noticing anything. As we walked back towards the bushes, Woods noticed something blue in the bushes. Woods handed me the item, after a few minutes of inspecting the blue device I realized what it was.

“This isn’t trash.” I announced.

“What?” Woods quizzed spinning on his heels to face me.

“This is a handheld RFID Writer.” I said, spinning the device in my hand a few times.

“What does it do?” Woods asked, guesting towards the handheld.

“It makes Fobs.” I answered.

Woods threw his hands up in the air, as he backed away from me. As I nervously laughed, “I’m so happy that we figured it out, but also terrified.” I said.

“That literally saved me. Not going to lie.” Woods joked.

“Did you put it there?” I joked back.

“No! I swear I didn't.” Woods shouted, raising his hands in the air. “Can I see it?” Woods asked, holding out his hand.

I hesitated for a few seconds, “Not like I know how to use it.” He muttered.

“See how it says read? You read someone’s Fob, then you write it on your own.” I explained.

“Oh, like taking a signal off of it?” He questioned.

“No, you duplicate the Fob.” I corrected.

“Do you really think I have the attention span for all of this?” Woods finally asked causing me to burst with laughter.

We walked inside the red base, I sent Woods to my office while I hung back with CJ. “What do you think?” I asked CJ.

CJ shook his head, “I don’t know, like he’s right this doesn’t seem like a Woods thing to do with his attention span.” He admitted.

“I get that, but you can’t stop and not think stuff is starting to add up in a specific way.” I argued.

“I think it is a little weird with the location, we just went to, but I do think Shypus or whoever wants us to turn against each other.” CJ shrugged, folding his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, and I don’t want that to happen.” I sighed, throwing the handheld onto the table.

“I guess we can come up with ways it’s not him. He was on the roof when Shypus came to the studio.” CJ pointed out.

“Right, and it is too crazy to think Woods planted this. What I think happened was, like, my shirt getting caught, this was in his bag. When he ran off it fell out.” I explained.

“So you’re saying he used that to make a Fob, and that fell out when he ran away?” CJ questioned. “He must have already scanned a Fob, and already has a bunch of Fobs. So he didn’t really care about that.” CJ added.

“At this point, if Woods did plant this. I don’t think it would be this trashed.” I said.

“Yeah. True.” CJ shrugged.

CJ and I walked back towards the orange base, set up Mega Desk. “I’m just going to look up what is on the front.” I said typing in the handheld. A couple seconds passed, and the device showed up almost immediately.

“Well, that was easy.” I sighed. Scrolling through the amazon page finding a bunch of different Fobs.

“Is that illegal?” Woods quizzed.

After a few minutes the answer was yes, shockingly, I even found a company that would copy Fobs for people. “I’m going to throw this thing in the vault. Then take a nap.” I sighed, pushing out my chair and started walking up the stairs with Woods right behind me. When we got to the top of the stairs, I noticed the vault door was open.

“Why is the door open?” I asked, turning towards Woods.

“I don’t know.” Woods replied.

We set the handheld in the vault, then closed it and locked it. A few hours passed, I sat in my office calming down when the realization hit me. It was stupid to leave the car there, I had to get the car back. Unfortunately, everyone was on lunch, but luckily Bailey was available. I explained everything to Bailey, before we left the studio. We drove back to the Spooky House, I got out of the car.

“Okay, I left the keys in the ignition. Are you okay to drive back by yourself?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Bailey answered.

“Unless you want to see the car before you leave.” I said.

“Sure.” Bailey chirped.

I shrugged, leading Bailey down the hill towards the car. I unlocked the Mountaineer, sitting in the driver seat before starting the car.

“Do you want me to drive you back up? Or do you want to walk?” I asked, closing the door.

“I’ll drive with you.” Watching Bailey walk around the car to the passenger side.

We drove up the hill, I watched Bailey get out of the car, walked over towards my car, get in, and started driving back towards the studio. Letting out a sigh, I crossed my fingers and started following behind Bailey. As I was pulling into the studio, I realized I have nowhere to park the Mountaineer. As I was getting out of the car, Woods walked out of the garage.

“You went back to get it!?” He shouted.

“Yes, I went back to get it.” I answered.

“Why didn’t you take me? You...He...He could have been there!” Woods said.

“No, he ditched the car.” I argued.

I talked to Woods for another five minutes before parking the car in front of the back exit of the building. The car was back where it belonged, the next problem on the list was that case in the stairs.


	30. ↞Radio Silence↠

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can not believe we have hit 30 chapters, I didn't expect this series to go on this long, but I am so happy I stuck with this series.

Monday, January 4th

Over the past few days I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that case under the stairs. What was inside the case? Why did Shypus plant it? Was it still underneath the stairs? Did Shypus take it? If 863 didn’t work what other code would? All these thoughts ran through my head, today I wanted to answer some of those questions.

Booting up Mega Desk, I brought up Reddit as Sam and Woods entered the room. We scrolled through Reddit for ten to fifteen minutes before a post caught my attention. The post was about the ripped sticky note we found in the car. ‘If 863 doesn’t work, why not try 015?’ it read. Letting out a soft sigh, I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“You wanna try it don’t you?” Sam asked in a teasing manner.

“I wanna try it, but I also don’t want to.” I admitted.

“Do you really think it would work?” Woods asked as well.

“I have no idea, it’s worth a shot though.” I replied.

We first went to the vault, scavenging through the evidence to see if we could find any other codes. After twenty minutes we came up with nothing, once the vault was closed we headed towards the warehouse.

“I just thought of this, if this works and the case opens. There’s still a hidden camera in there, do we want him to know that we opened the case?” Sam whispered.

“I think he’s going to know either way, but it’s better for him to have less information.” I argued.

“Yeah, so we can still have an advantage or whatever. Like we talked about last time.” Sam said.

“Well, why don’t we just cut the camera?” Woods suggested as I pulled out my pocket knife.

“Why don’t you go in there first and cut the camera and then we go in and try to open the case.” Sam instructed.

I slowly opened the door, pulled the board off the step, then finally cut the camera. I then pulled the camera from underneath the stairs soon after Sam and Woods walked into the warehouse. I pulled the case from under the stairs, blowing the excess dust off the top. I set the case upright, then started inputting the numbers into the lock. The case, let out a soft click, I hovered my hand over the handle of the case, glancing from Sam then too Woods. From inside the case I could hear a soft buzz, I slowly opened the case finding in the middle of the case was an old computer. Next to it was a phone, connected to what I assumed to be a battery. Inside the lid of the case was a WIFI Router.

“So it’s a computer he’s hooked up to our ethernet?” Sam questioned.

“Why?” I shouted.

“Maybe it is monitoring what we are doing online.” Woods suggested.

“But, that doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

“Was the camera hooked up to this?” Sam screeched.

“I don’t know I would have to go back in and look.” I sighed. Pressing the side button on the phone, finding it was on as well. I slowly opened the laptop, also finding that it had power. Glancing down at the laptop I noticed a sticker on the base of the laptop, chewing my bottom lip I threw my hands towards the sticker.

“What!?” Sam said.

“Interceptor? What does that mean?” Woods questioned reading off the sticker.

“It intercepts phone calls.” I announced.

“Do you think that’s what he’s been doing?” Sam quizzed.

I let out a nervous laugh, putting my face into my hands. “How would that even work?” Woods asked.

“I honestly don’t know, I didn’t even think that was possible.” I admitted.

“Not for the LAPD, are you sure it’s for phones and not for something else?” Woods said.

“GSM is a phone infrastructure, like Team Mobile, and other networks like that.” I explained.

“So, is this why nobody has gotten back to us?” Sam realized.

“Yeah, because we never actually filed a report or got a hold of them.” I said folding my arms over my chest.

“So you think we have been talking to Shypus this whole time?” Sam suggested

“I don’t like that idea.” I responded with a laugh.

“This seems a little more advanced than LAPD.” Woods said.

I sat down on a chair, pulling out my phone. Finding a website called Spy Phone has a bunch of interceptors for sale.“I think this thing was specifically designed to spoof a cell tower, I mean think about it. When have we ever had five bars here?” I offered.

“So someone I am assuming Shypus has had the ability to access our phone calls. Then have the ability to intercept them?” Sam questioned, her eyes widening.

“Here is the worst part, Is this actually LAPD or not? Or is this Shypus pretending it’s LAPD property to scare us away from calling the real LAPD? Or even a third option, is there actually something happening inside the LAPD?” I questioned.

“I don’t know, we have tried to call LAPD, and that obviously hasn’t worked. So I think he doesn’t want us to get into contact with them, but this could be property from them that he stole.” Sam sparked the idea.

“Or he was an old cop at some point.” Woods pointed out.

“Like an ex-cop?” Sam quizzed.

“Yeah, because I feel like there’s too many steps to go ahead to make it look like it belonged to LAPD.” Woods answered.

“There is only one way to find out.” I announced.

Sam and Woods looked at me waiting for an answer nervously, “I say we call the police and see if it intercepts.” I said pointing towards the case.


	31. ↞Hijacked↠

Friday, January 12th

I pulled out my phone, Sam put her hands together. “I don’t think we should call yet.” She blurted out.

“Why What’s the difference?” I questioned.

“We’ve never been around the case, when it’s been activated. Before we ‘activate’ it, I feel like we should explore more of its function.” She explained.

I took in a deep breath, “Okay.” I answered shortly.

“We totally could, but say we do explore more. What if we unhook something and then he finds out we’ve been messing with it.” Woods interjected.

“We cut the camera, I think Shypus knows we have been messing with the case dude.” I said.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know we’ve gotten into the case.” Woods argued.

“That’s true.” I sighed.

“Why I want to get into this computer so bad, is because we don’t know if Shypus stole it from the LAPD or like you said there is someone is who dirty in the LAPD.” Sam said.

“Okay, try it out.” I urged.

“You’re going to make me touch it?” Sam whined.

“I can do it if you want me to.” I answered.

Sam shivered, pulling her coat sleeve over her thumb as she moved the cursor. Discovering the computer was of course, password protected. Sam tried to type in 863, the computer processed for a couple seconds before refusing the password. In small text there was a password hint: _‘590.’_ Sam tried typing Shypus 590, the computer gave us the same results.

“What about the password from the car?” Woods asked.

“Do you even still have that?” Sam asked, glancing back at me.

“I took a picture of it on my phone.” I gasped quickly, pulling my phone from my pocket. Once I brought up the picture I began reading it off my phone as Sam typed it. Sam pressed enter, the password was incorrect.

“What does this password go to then!?” I shouted, shaking my phone. “We know this is connected to Shypus, he brought the case and set it up and then left.” I added folding my arms.

“Also the password hint is 590.” Sam said, pointing to the computer screen.

“Maybe he knew we had that piece of paper and changed the password?” Woods suggested.

“I don’t know, if that is the case, then we would have to remember all the passwords or words we have found so far.” Sam said.

“I think we just call it at this point. If we call it and it doesn’t go through this and we’re wrong.” I started.

“Then great!” Sam interrupted.

“That’s great, because then I actually have been contacting the police.” I finished.

“Then they have been just ignoring us?” Woods chuckled.

“I’m just going to do it.” I announced, bringing up the number, I let it ring a few times before bringing it to my ear. A few seconds later the phone started vibrating and the screen lit up with my phone number displayed. After a few minutes, someone on the other end answered. It was him! The man behind the mask, Shypus.

“Sorry, wrong number.” I stammered quickly hanging up. My mouth hung open as I swiftly shoved my phone in my pocket.

“What did you hear!?” Sam shouted.

“I heard what sounded like the police department.” I answered.

“What did they say?” Woods asked.

“The voice was gravely, and raspy.” I replied.

“A number popped up when you called.” Sam urged, pointing to the phone.

“So there are two numbers on that phone!” I shouted.

“Yeah! It had yours, then the phone number it was redirecting to.” Sam pointed out.

“So, it didn’t redirect it to the sheriff station?” Woods confirmed.

“I don’t know.” I said, raising my hands in the air.

“Can you bring up the sheriff station number and see if it matches?” Sam asked.

After finding the phone number the call was redirected to, and looking at my phone. The numbers didn’t match, “So that means, that phone goes to Shypus.” Woods said.

I chuckled, taking a few steps away from the steps, then walked back. Laughing to myself. “What other conclusion could it come to?” Sam questioned.

“There is no other conclusion.” I said.

“Wait, wait, if it’s not Shypus….” Sam started speaking then shook her head. “I can’t think of who else it would be to be honest.” She sighed.

“Is that even a name!?” I shouted.

“We know it’s a username. But, we know whoever you heard that’s the person who owns this case. It might be Shypus, since he put it in here. That’s the person who wants to hear our calls, and monitor us. And so far history leads us to believe that is Shypus.” Sam explained.

“It’s just that one person, he’s been hijacking our calls.” Woods started speaking.

“You don’t know that.” I interrupted.

Woods sighed, “We’ve only been dealing with one person.” Woods argued.

“You don’t know that.” I repeated.

“Or maybe two!” Woods said, raising his voice.

I shook my head, “Or maybe ten,” I responded.

“We just don’t know.” Sam said.

“This guy has literally been in our studio, knows his way around the studio. This isn’t his first time in this studio. It’s all connected, the 63 key, to the keys in the wall that were there before we even got here, to the car. He’s been in all the bases.” I explained.

“He’s essentially trying to keep this place from getting attention.” Woods pointed out.

“This has to be so much bigger than one person though.” Sam mused.

“That’s my point, how can one person be so connected to all these places? He’s been here before, he knows this layout.” I said.

“Wait, it made a noise.” Sam said, holding up her finger signalling me to stop speaking.

We all stayed silent for a few seconds, when we didn’t hear the noise again. I began speaking again, “How can one person know so much about every unit in this entire building. Unless he’s been here before us.” I speculated.

“What does he sound like?” Woods asked again.

“Did he say anything?” Sam asked as well.

“It sounded like when you call a police station, there definitely was a man.” I tried to describe.

“If you called again and heard his voice would you be able to recognize it?” Woods asked.

I nodded my head, “Yeah, I would.” I replied.

We all took a deep breath, leaving the warehouse and went out to the lobby of the red base. We all sat down on the couch, resting our heads on the back of it. “I don’t know what to do, I do know I want to pull the plug on that case.” I announced.

“You want to unplug it!?” Sam screeched.

“I don’t know, don’t you think? There was a power strip on the side of it. So I feel like we should at least kill the power that way.” I said.

“Where is it even plugged into?” Woods asked.

“We don’t know. We could, just to say this. Call the new number.” Sam suggested.

“Do you have the number?” Woods asked.

“We have a direct number to him.” Sam replied.

“I don’t like saying his name.” Woods admitted.

“Who says it’s even his name?” I pointed out.

“That’s true, it’s just what we have been calling him.” Sam whispered. “But we have a potential way of contacting this person.” Sam added holding up her hand.

“Why? What do we have to gain? Just to see if it’s the same voice?” I asked. After thinking about it for a couple seconds it actually sounded like a good idea.

“Wasn’t it an automated bot before?” Woods asked.

“No.” Sam replied.

“But, I have gotten an automated message before.” I admitted.

“Okay, if we do call the problem is it will go through the interceptor and he’ll know it’s you.” Sam pointed out holding a hand out towards me. “But, what if you turn it off and then you call?” She asked.

“Should we have someone else call?” Woods asked.

“Who would call you? Or Woods?” I asked, nudging my head towards each of them.

“I’ve called before, so he would probably recognize my number as well, so that leaves Woods.” Sam said, pointing to herself.

“Sure, I’ll call him.” Woods said nonchalantly.

“Okay, so we go in there, get the number and then turn it off.” Sam instructed.

“Yep.” I agreed.

“Wait, why are we turning it off?” Woods asked, suddenly panicked.

“So it doesn’t get rerouted.” Sam started.

“No just that, just because I want it off.” I interrupted.

“I don’t think we should turn it off.” Woods said nervously.

“We aren’t going to yank it out of the wall, we are just going to turn off the power strip so it doesn't reroute our calls.” Sam explained.

“Well, I’ve been able to make other calls.” Woods informed.

“Then it probably looks at who you're calling and decides whether or not it can go through.” I pointed out.

“My problem with turning it off is, if there are dirty people in the LAPD and we turn it off then they will know and then what? How will they keep us silent?” Woods urged.

“He makes a good point.” I sighed.

“I just think we don’t kill the power to the case just yet.” Woods said.

“Okay, okay, fine. But we do need to go get the number.” Sam said, waving her hands in front of her.

We all walked back into the warehouse, Woods handed me his phone, I typed the number and then I called the number back, a few seconds passed. He answered.

“And?” Woods asked.

“Was it the same voice?” Sam quizzed putting her hands together into a small fist.

“It was the same voice. Block that number.” I confirmed.

“Are you actually positive?” Woods said blocking the number quickly.

“I am a hundred percent sure.” I announced.


	32. ↞John Doe↠

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so worried I wouldn't be able to get this chapter out on time.

It was a normal thing for me to receive emails from fans claiming to be part of Syntec I would read them for the humor and then brush them aside. That was until I received an email from someone called John Doe, I decided to grab Sam and Woods to see what their thoughts were. I brought up the email, reading through it slowly aloud. 

“My first question is which email was this sent to? Was this sent to your personal email? Or was this your public email?” Sam asked. 

“My personal one.” I answered. 

“That makes me think this is a little more serious, because all the emails I get are from my contacts in my email like Instagram.” She explained. 

“How often do you get emails from random people?” Woods questioned now. 

“Often.” I answered, 

Woods and Sam looked a little taken back, “Oh, really?” They asked in unison. 

“I don’t know how they get my email address, I assume they guess. But normally I am not the ones who filter through them, normally Bailey does. So it’s possible she has filtered some of John Doe’s emails.” I said pointing my thumb at the computer screen. 

“I honestly think she has, because some of the emails make her laugh so while I am passing her desk she asks me to look at them.” Sam informed. 

I nodded my head, then began reading the rest of the email, the last line in the email spooked me. _**“Before we start, check and see if you still have the 843 American Flag key, we were tracking the origins of that one for months. That will prove my authenticity.”**_

“See that part sends chills down my back, because I am the only one that has logged the keys and counted how many we have. I made a list of the keys that have shown up on camera, the ones that haven’t shown up on camera, as well as all the keys we have in that box.” Sam started explaining. 

“Can we go check? I want to hold it in my hands.” I asked. 

“That’s what I was going to say, 843 have never shown up on camera.” Sam informed me. 

“For real?” Woods questioned sitting up in his seat now.

“For real. So nobody should know or could know what it is.” Sam said. “I even put all the keys that haven’t shown up on camera in another drawer inside my office.” Sam added. 

“Why would you do that? For this kind of situation?” Woods asked, slightly confused.   
“No, for safekeeping. Because in my mindset it was if Shypus was watching our videos I kind of liked the idea of him thinking we didn’t have certain keys.” Sam explained. 

“How would John Doe know that?” I questioned. 

“I don’t know, that’s why I am actually slightly freaked out. Because I know nobody other than me knows about that key.” Sam said. 

“Does that prove his authenticity?” Woods quizzed. 

“I don’t know, honestly I just want to see it for myself.” I said waving my hand in front of me. 

We all walked up to Sam’s office, Sam shuffled through her filing cabinet for a few minutes before pulling out the American Flag 843 key out. My heart was beating out of my chest, taking a shaky breath I held out my hand. Sam dropped the key into my hand, the cold metal sent a chill down my spine. The feeling of uneasiness cramped my stomach. 

“It’s just that it’s so distinctive that nobody could even guess that.” Sam commented. 

“What would that be too?” Woods asked, wrapping himself with Sam’s grey fluffy blanket. Then sat down on the couch. 

“I don’t know what the key would go, but how would someone know that’s a key that exists?” Sam said. 

“I don’t know, but I do know we are missing a huge piece to the backstory of these keys.” Woods said. 

“The thought that I just had was, how would someone know unless they know about all the keys.” She stated. 

“That’s the thing that doesn’t add up to me, how would this person know, unless they were Shypus.” I remarked. 

“We’d be falling in his trap.” Woods said. “When did you get this email? Was it before or after the car?” Woods spoke again. 

“This was a couple hours ago.” I said. 

“It’s quite possible he’s trying to change his tactic to fool us.” Woods proposed. 

“So what do we do? Ignore it?” I asked. 

“What!? No!” Woods shouted. 

“I think since we have two other keys, we should ask him for another key. Because if he does confirm another key we have then we know it is indeed Syhpus.” Sam declared. 

“That really doesn't confirm anything.” I argued. 

“What if we just tell him he has the wrong key?” Woods suggested. 

“I feel like if this is Shypus he would know, I just don’t know how to make sure it isn’t him. Maybe ask more questions?” Sam said.

“I say we try not to give him any information, but we try and get information from him.” I declared. 

“This has to be Shypus or someone else, but I don’t know who that would be.” Sam cried. 

“See, I didn’t even know we were keeping keys off camera, so how would another employee know or Shypus or whoever this is.” Woods admitted. 

“The only way Shypus would know is if he had the keys before. What makes me think this isn’t Shypus is the fact this person pointed out that it was an American Flag key, if Shypus was just looking for 843 key would he know that it’s an American Flag key?” I mentioned. 

“Why I think it’s not Shypus is because I feel like he doesn’t make a move until we find something. So I feel he is at the same spot we are with knowledge, also if it is Shypus don’t you think he would think of something better than John Doe?” Woods explained. 

“You’re both right, I think we should email him.” I finally said. 

I let out a small sigh, walking out of Sam’s office back downstairs to Mega Desk. Sitting down at the computer I glanced through the email one more time. Noticing John Doe’s email address was Accipiters which was a type of bird of prey. I didn’t get a good feeling from that, I was about to send an email back with an idea that struck me. Why not use Google Hangouts? Clicking on it, I typed in his email, changing the title to ‘Are you there?’ then sent the invite waiting for him to reply. 

It didn’t take even five minutes for John Doe to accept the invite. With a simple “Yes.” 

At first I got excited, I quickly pushed my excitement down, with the thought this could still be a fan. Half of me wanted it to be, I wasn’t ready to open whatever this would lead to, but my curiosity got the better of me and wanted answers more. 

“I figured this would be faster than an email chain.” I sent.

“Are you currently on an encrypted line?” John Doe replied. 

“No, I don’t think we are.” I replied, glancing from Sam to Woods then back to the computer. 

“Are you in your studio?” He suddenly asked. 

I hesitated for a minute, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. “I don’t like that question.” Woods said nervously. 

“Why would we tell this person we are here? We don’t know who this person is, he could be crazy or this could be a fan right outside.” Sam pointed out. 

“Out of town?” Woods inputted.

“No, then someone could break in.” Sam argued. 

“Why don’t you just say I don’t feel comfortable answering that.” Woods suggested holding out his hand. 

Nodding my head, “I like that one better. “I replied. “I don’t feel comfortable answering that.” I finally typed back. 

“I can’t confirm a secure location.” John Doe replied. A few seconds after he typed another message. “There is only so much I can tell you.” 

“Is that why he wants this to be a secure line? Because he’s going to tell me stuff?” I questioned. 

“That’s what it sounds like.” Sam said leaning back in her chair.

“How can we trust this person?” Woods commented. 

“Who are you?” I typed back. 

“I cannot share it at this time.” John Doe responded. 

I let out a small frustrated growl, “Why?” I typed quickly. 

Rubbing my bottom lip waiting for an answer, my computer let off a soft ping. “For security reasons, you don’t have a secure line.” I read off. 

“How do we know you’re on our side?” I typed. 

“I’m not on anyone’s side. I’m trying to find answers too.” He said. 

“Why?” I repeated. 

I turned in my chair to face Sam and Woods, “If this is legit, we should start thinking what we are going to ask him.” I said. 

“Why the studio?” Woods started. 

“Yeah! Why is the mountaineer so important?” Sam shouted, throwing her hand into the air. 

My computer made pinging noises, I spun back around in my chair. “My investigation was officially shut down years ago, and it wasn’t until your videos started making waves that I realized there might be some truth to my old working theories.” John Doe responded. 

"Investigation!?" Sam screeched behind me. 

“What do they want from us?” Woods asked. 

“I mean this is all happening to us so maybe they are wanting answers like us.” I replied. 

“What do they want?” Woods asked again. 

“That’s a great question, what do you want?” I typed. 

John Doe answered with a simple word “Resolution.” 

“Okay, he’s being cryptic now.” Sam commented. I

I chuckled, running a hand down my face. “When does he need help, what about us?” I said. 

“We want answers.” I typed.

“Go ahead, then.” John Doe seemed to challenge. 

I took a deep breath, thinking to myself for a long minute before starting to type. “We found a corrosive in our studio that ate away the second floor flooring of our studio. Have you ever come across anything like that?” 

“That’s classified, I don’t have the clearance.” I read off, then let out a sigh. 

“Okay, how about. Have you ever come across a red Mountaineer?” I tried again. 

My computer let off a ping, I read the reply in my head a couple times in my head making me shake my head. “I need to have the bVIN number.” I read off. 

“WHAT!?” Sam and Woods shouted inunison. 

“How many Red Mountaineer’s does this guy know!?” Woods shouted as his eyes widened. 

“There are multiple?” I typed swiftly, slightly taken back. 

“You notice how he isn’t answering any of our questions.” I commented looking back towards Sam and Woods.

“Yeah, you would think since he knows what we are going through he would give us more info.” Sam replied. 

“I repeat, the VIN number. I need to know which one you are referring to.” John urged. 

“What?” Woods questioned. 

“What do you mean which Mountaineer?” I shouted. 

“There are more?” Sam cried. 

“Why are there more Mountaineers?” Woods asked.

“How many Red Mercury Mountaineers are there?” I typed back.

“Why are there more than one? Also why does he know about them?” Woods quizzed. 

“I don’t know.” I replied by taking a sip of my drink. 

“I can not respond further until I get the VIN number.” I read aloud, I slammed my hand against my desk in frustration. I let out a soft growl, throwing my hands in the air. After a couple minutes passed I finally copy and pasted the VIN number and sent it to John. 

“This guy is useless.” Woods sighed. 

“Right! I thought he had stuff he wanted to share with us.” Sam mocked. “I understand it’s not on an encrypted line, but give us something.” She added. 

“I agree, give us something.” I muttered, my eyes glued onto the screen waiting for a response. 

After what seemed like ten minutes John finally answered. “Damn…” 

I answered with a question mark, chuckling to myself. “It’s the same one, it’s shown up before.” He responded back. “I assume you’ve found “stuff” inside it?” John added quickly. 

“Everything we have found we’ve shared online.” I replied. 

“You haven’t found everything. There’s more inside of it.” John typed back. 

“What? What else?” I questioned him. 

“I’m not sure.” John responded. 

“This guy is so contradicting.” Woods shouted pointing to the computer screen. 

“Should we ask them if there have been any other weird things that have happened at this studio?” Sam asked, putting her hands on top of her head. 

“It’s worth a shot, I mean clearly he knows where the studio is.” I said. 

“Have there been previous incidents at this address you have investigated?” I typed back. 

“Yes, but there was a special unit that was sent out. It was years ago, before that building you’re in was split into individual units.” John informed me. 

“What?” I said confused. 

“Didn’t you and Kevin say that this unit used to be one big building?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah, but I meant the context of what the property manager told me. The property manager told me how it was built.” I replied. 

“Well, how was it built?” Woods asked. 

“He didn’t tell me that it used to be all one whole place.” I stated. 

“That sounds like a type of government building.” Woods pointed out. “What was it before?” Woods asked. 

“We don’t know, all I know is previous tenants.” I answered. 

“Oh I thought you said you and Kevin found lab equipment.” Woods said. 

“That was in the red base.” I said.

“I do remember the previous tenant for the orange base.” I announced. “It was CSI.” I added. 

“Like the TV show?” Sam questioned. 

“Yeah, it was their entire editing unit, but then they just upped and left.” I explained. 

My computer let out a ping, I turned to face my computer. “There might be records to view, I will get in touch if I find anything on that. I want to ask a question.” John sent. “How many keys are in that red box?” He added. 

“Around fifty.” I responded. 

“Fascinating. And the key I first emailed you about, you said you have possession of it?” John asked. 

“Yes, but how did you know?” I asked. 

“Because I have that one too.” John replied. 

“How?” Sam yelled. 

“I’m not following.” Woods said burrowing his brow in confusion. 

“How?” I typed back. 

“I have a working theory, but it’s very bare bones right now. There’s not enough information, so I would sound insane sharing it.” John typed. 

“Ask him about the case, or like if there is any involvement of the police.” Woods said. 

“Is the LAPD watching, are they aware of this?” I questioned John. 

“They are actively shutting down anyone looking into this. Be careful.” John responded. 

“I mean obviously not, where still here.” Sam said.

I shook my head, “That’s not what he meant Sam, he meant he’s inside the LAPD and this is why he’s going undercover to contact us because his investigation was not reopened.” I explained.

“Does that mean he’s LAPD?” Woods questioned. 

“I think we ask him about the case, it seems like the LAPD is involved so why not ask if he knows about it.” Sam suggested. 

“There’s a LAPD Case we found in our studio plugged into our power and ethernet cord, do you know what that might be?” I quizzed. 

“Where’s it plugged into?” John typed back. 

“Under the stairs, we haven’t followed the cable.” I responded.   
“I advise you to disconnect and investigate immediately. It is crucial that you inform me of any developments here.” John said. 

“Does it belong to the LAPD?” I questioned. 

“The case does, yes.” John responded back swiftly. “Or rather some inside LAPD.” He added quicker. 

“A cell phone interceptor doesn’t belong to the average police officer would have” Sam said looking from Woods then back to the computer. 

“He answered our question, kind of.” I replied unsure.“Maybe he doesn't even know who the case belongs to, because then he still wouldn’t be here, he'd have solved his case I guess.” I explained. 

“I think he told us everything we needed to know about the case. That whoever’s involved including Shypus, maybe he is one of the bad officers. They planted this case under our stairs and left it there to monitor us. As well as effing with our calls.” Woods said. 

“The two things that keep coming around and around are 863 and Shypus. It seems those two things are connected to everything. Right now the safe we were sent in the mail by D is not connected to anything. Is that something completely different?” I said. 

“What do you mean?” Woods questioned, confused. 

“It is connected because the key you found in the mini safe in the filing cabinet opened it.” Sam gasped. “So I would ask him if 863 means anything.” Sam suggested. 

“Does 863 mean anything to you?” I asked John. 

“It’s a black hole.” John responded. 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“Aren’t you living it?” John reminded me. 

“So maybe he means a rabbit hole then?” Sam asked. 

“Do you know of a Shypus?” I asked John again. 

John answered with another simple word. “Yes.”

“Who is he?” I asked, starting to get frustrated. 

“He’s all that’s left.” John replied. 

That sent another wave of chills down my spine again, “All that’s left of what?” I thought. 

Another ping came from my computer, “Times up. Secure your lines and we can talk more. I want to make a drop, I will reach out to coordinate.” John hyped before he went dark. 


End file.
